The Voodoo That You Do

Having once worked for a labor union, Bostonist knows that relations between workers and management can get more than a little tense. But we were impressed with the audacity of Harborside Healthcare: The Boston company is challenging the results of a union election, saying that the voting was not fair because a union organizer threatened to use voodoo on healthcare workers (most of whom are Haitian) if they didn't vote for the union.

Bostonist's initial instinct was to give Harborside credit for creativity (while subtracting far more credit for thinly veiled racism). But it turns out that voodoo accusations are nothing new in labor relations. There have been at least two cases before the National Labor Relations Board in the last ten years in which employers used voodoo as an excuse to fire union supporters or try to overturn union election results, both times without success. We especially like the 2001 case of Enquire Printing and Publishing Co. in Queens, New York. They tried to fire an employee, Yury Sikarevich, for allegedly taking up a collection among other workers to hire a voodoo witch doctor who would rid the company of an unpopular manager. When it was pointed out that Sikarevich was from Russia, a country not known for voodoo traditions, a company representative responded by noting that Sikarevich's sister-in-law was from Barbados (another country, Bostonist reminds you, which is not known for voodoo traditions). We can only hope that if Harborside persists in challenging the union election, it comes up with a more plausible, less offensive way to do it. And if the company really wants to keep its workers from organizing, focusing on their Haitian origin might not be a good idea. After all, there is only one sentence written on the Haitian flag, and that sentence is, "In Union there is Strength."

Contributed by Josh Michtom