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Hospital Employees Union Survey is 'push polling': BCNU President

The president of the embattled BC Nurses Union said a survey recently released by the Hospital Employees’ Union reflected “untrustworthy push polling.” Debra McPherson also told the Tyee that her union had left the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions this August to protect other nursing unions from “the wrath of the Canadian Labour Congress.”

As reported on the Hook last week, the results of the HEU phone survey, posted on the union’s website, said that fewer than one out of three of the registered nurses in BC contacted support the attempts by the BCNU to persuade HEU members who work as licensed practical nurses to leave that union and certify with the BC Nurses Union.

“The HEU did an automated phone poll,” McPherson said. “Push polls are often slanted, using leading questions and not really reflecting the demographics of the group being polled. The HEU poll just asked people to push buttons.”

McPherson told the Tyee that her union had an external third party conduct internal polls of BCNU membership that reflected widespread member support for the raids on HEU. However, she declined to make those results available to the Tyee. “Our scientifically done polls are not for the media,” she said.

Push polling has been condemned by a major American public opinion research body, the American Association for Public Opinion Research.

According to the AAPOR, push polling, which it calls “an insidious form of negative campaigning” can be identified by several characteristics. Only one or a few questions are asked, the questions are strongly negative descriptions of the candidate or issue, the organization conducting the calls is not named and evasive answers are given in response to questions about the survey.

Contacted by the Tyee, Mike Old, communication director for the Hospital Employees Union rejected McPherson’s claims about his union’s survey.

“We never called it a poll, or claimed our survey was anything it wasn’t,” Old said. “It’s true we used an automated system, but we clearly identified the call as being from the HEU. What our survey revealed is that a lot of nursed are concerned about the raid and its costs, both in dues money expended and in undermining solidarity. We should be working together. The raid is a huge disappointment. As for our LPN members, we are confident we have their support.”

Old said that LPN members of HEU, contacted in a phone survey in early September, indicated that four out of five would continue to support the HEU and reject the attempted raid.

The BCNU’s McPherson told the Tyee that her union had withdrawn from its national umbrella group, the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions this August. She said that the decision to withdraw was taken because the Canadian Labour Congress, which has suspended BCNU from membership because of its raids on HEU, was “leaning heavily” on the Canadian Federation to expel her union.

“We withdrew to protect other nurses unions from CLC wrath,” she said.

Tom Sandborn covers labour and health policy stories for the Tyee. He welcomes your feedback and story tips at [email protected]

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