The seven-year struggle by SEIU1199 to organize Yale New Haven Hospital's 1,800 service workers has heated up in recent months. Both sides claim to support the right of workers to organize and have been trading salvos on local television and in newspapers. Melinda Tuhus reports from New Haven:

More than half the hospital's nurse's aides, housekeepers, custodians and secretaries have signed a union card. And the hospital says it supports their right to unionize, according to spokesman Vin Petrini.

[Petrini]: We support their right to do that through the National labor Relations Board.

Lance Compa did a study for Human Rights Watch that he says shows definitively that the NLRB is stacked against workers.

[Compa]: It's really become a tool for frustrating workers' organizing rights instead of empowering workers to make their own decisions.

The NLRB has cited the hospital four times for unfair labor practices, but has required the hospital to do nothing more than post a notice saying it will not repeat the violations.

Tawana Marks has been working at Yale New Haven Hospital for 14 years, and is active in the union drive. She says it's discouraging working beside Yale University employees doing the same job, and explains why she wants a union:

[Marks]: I think a union coming in would actually give us a voice, give us a sense that we belong, versus just employees who are just here to do a job, with nothing else to say, you know we don't have any feedback to give that's going to be listened to and adhered to.

For WIN, I'm Melinda Tuhus in New Haven.