Dividends: Striking Back

Colonial Manor Nursing Home last July faced a strike by its 45 union employees. To maintain care for its 80 to 100 patients, the Ohio facility spent some $15,000 to recruit, hire and train a new staff to start when the walkout began. But on the appointed day, everyone, new and old, showed up for work. Colonial was so furious that it has slapped a $3 million suit against the Service Employees International Union for failing to carry out its strike threat. "When you think you have a wrong committed against you, you're entitled to go to court," says Bertyl Johnson, vice president and general counsel. "They told us they were going to strike, and they didn't."

Kenneth Lewis, the union local's president, insists that the workers were under no obligation to walk out. Says Lewis: "The threat of a strike is a bargaining tool. It's more meaningful than a strike itself, once the employer finds out the membership is dead serious."

Although the union members are now back on the job, they are still without a contract to replace the one that ran out last April, and a tentative agreement has fallen apart. "I was delighted when I thought we could settle this thing without a strike," says Lewis. "Now I'm a little dismayed and angry."