Led by hospital workers from Ohio, whose union elections were recently sabotaged by the California Nurses Association, SEIU members from around the country engaged in a peaceful protest Saturday at the Labor Notes Conference in Dearborn, Michigan.

CNA Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro had been scheduled to speak at the conference banquet Saturday night. At the last minute, rather than face the protestors, DeMoro declined to appear. Later that evening, the CNA released an inaccurate and inflammatory version of what took place at the conference.

Here are the facts:

Most of the SEIU members who traveled to Dearborn to express their disapproval of the CNA’s tactics were women. They were primarily home care workers, nursing assistants, and other caregivers. Some brought their children with them.

They had gathered at the conference hoping to voice their disapproval of the CNA’s anti-union campaign in Ohio that stripped more than 8,000 hospital workers of the opportunity to freely choose whether to form a union with SEIU. 

Despite efforts to prevent the health care workers from making their voices heard, the rally was a peaceful one. Protestors talked to individual conference attendees about what happened in Ohio. They chanted “union busting is disgusting.”

At no time did they engage in or witness the kind of activities described by the CNA.

“We just wanted to tell Rose Ann that she injured 8,000 people in Ohio,” said Edina Quinton, a patient care technician from the Springfield Regional Medical Center in Ohio, who attended the conference and was surprised by the CNA’s account of the event. “We want to organize with SEIU, so that everyone in our hospital will have a strong and united voice. We came a long way to tell Rose Ann that, but she wouldn’t even talk to us. She didn’t even show up because she knew we were there.”