Dave Powelson has no connection to the Fremont-Rideout Health Group or the labor negotiations with its nurses.

On Sept. 24, though, he was thrown into the middle of the labor debate after what he said was more than a dozen union supporters who descended upon his Yuba City welding business demanding to know why he was collecting petitions to decertify the California Nurses Association.

The association was voted in to represent nurses at the hospital in August 2006. The union has been in strained contract negotiations with hospital administration since then.

Employees for Self-Representation, the group that created the decertification campaign, formed last October when some nurses wanted to get out of the union.

Powelson said he does not have any affiliation with nurses at the hospital only that he supports the hospital administration on the labor issue.

His welding shop, located on Second Street in Yuba City, is a drop-off location for nurses who wish to sign the petition, but want to keep their identities unknown, he said.

"Some people have gotten hassled,", Powelson said. "Truthfully, I just serve as a mailing address. I've got nothing in it."

Powelson said petitions are sent to him and he forwards them to a post office box. He said he doesn't know who gets them from there.

Powelson said the encounter with about 15 to 20 nurses was hostile and that they took pictures of him as he closed the door to his business.

Union-supporting nurses who visited Powelson, though, said that is not what happened that Wednesday morning.

Jean De Lange, a registered nurse in the Fremont Medical Center postpartum unit, said the nurses called ahead of time and Powelson told them he would be at his shop all day.

"I was looking forward to open communication (with Powelson)," De Lange said. "I'm trying to educate the community and understand where our support comes from."

De Lange said only eight or nine nurses visited the business Sept. 24.

Powelson said he did not know it was union supporters who called.

The group of nurses who visited Powelson also visited the business of hospital Board of Director members Lisa Del Pero and Bill Bravos, as well as former member Dick Sanchez. Employees of all three business confirmed nurses visited the buildings, but declined to comment further.

The photos taken of Powelson appeared in a newsletter created by CNA claiming he is running the decertification campaign and that he refused to speak with the registered nurses.

Powelson also took several photos of his own. In his photos, two union supporters are using cell phones to photograph Powelson while others held signs supporting CNA and pro-union nurses.

Powelson said a report was filed with the Yuba City police following the incident.

"That's harassment and it's trespassing," he said. "I won't stand for people coming in here unwanted."

Representatives for the Employees for Self Representation said they are between 15 and 30 signatures away from the more than 50 percent needed to decertify the union without the need to hold an election. They need a total of 235 signatures. Roughly 450 nurses are employed by Fremont-Rideout.

Nilo Morga, a registered nurse in Rideout Memorial Hospital's intensive care unit and a union supporter, said they've seen the petitions and not all signatures qualify.

"That number is exaggerated," he said. "LVNs (licensed vocational nurses) are on the list, they're not supposed to sign it.

Morga participated in the visit to the welding shop last week to "find out why (Powelson) thought the RNs should decertify."

"But he refused to speak with us," Morga said.

Jan Brundage, a nurse at the Feather River Surgery Center who opposes CNA representation, said it's not possible for anyone to see signed petitions because they are under lock and key.

"CNA has not seen nurse signatures," she said. "We've promised confidentiality and no one has access to the petitions."

Nurses at the Feather River Surgery Center successfully decertified CNA in October 2007. They said they enjoy pay increases and direct communication with hospital administrators.

If the needed 50 percent-plus is met, Brundage said, all signatures will be sent directly to the National Labor Relations Board. The labor board would then verify signatures.

Some nurses declined to go on record with the Appeal-Democrat, saying they feared retaliation from the union and its supporters. But they said the union is feeling the pressure and may be panicking. That panic may have prompted the visits to these businesses, they said.

Beth Loyd said the union's brought a lot of turmoil to the hospital and she would like to see some resolution.

"There's so much negativity floating around," Loyd said. "Either way, having (the issue) resolved would help with the turmoil and conflict going on."

Loyd, a registered nurse in the Rideout ICU, said she was a union supporter until the first strike held in August 2007. She said she signed the decertification petition shortly after that.

Additional strikes were held in October and March.

Loyd said she crossed the picket lines because she did not want to leave her patients, but once she crossed the lines, union supporters turned on her.

"They stopped talking to me. And if they had pot lucks I wasn't invited," She said.

"if that was what a union was going to do to us, I didn't want anything to do with it," Lloyd said.

De Lange thinks the union will unite the nurses.

"I like the idea of nurses having a collective say and collective bargaining," she said.

Stephanie Bone, a registered nurse at Rideout Memorial, said she's been against the union from the beginning, but the pressure from union nurses is overwhelming to some nurses.

"You listen to them to be polite," Bone said of some pro-union nurses who try to hand out literature during work hours. "But it's like that's nice, that's what you believe in, but I don't and I'd like that respect to be against it."

Contact Appeal-Democrat re-porter Andrea Koskey at 749-4709 or akoskey@appealdemocrat.com