Issue link: https://nnumagazine.uberflip.com/i/117852
Nurses v. Schwarzenegger RNs have no tolerance for assault on ratios, telling governor to keep his ���hands off!��� ���Perhaps some one should have warned Governor Schwarzenegger that nurses are no pushovers.��� This was the lead to an article published in Time magazine March 7, 2005. The story reported that the governor had been locked for months in a furious feud with the state���s RNs over his decision to suspend new state rules that limited the number of patients a nurse must care for. The ���restorm ignited when Schwarzenegger in November 2004 issued emergency regulations claiming that, because ERs and hospitals were closing, the mandate for medical and surgical ratios to be reduced from 1:6 to 1:5 that was to be effective Jan. 1, 2005, must be delayed for three years. He also suspended ratios in emergency departments when under ���historical saturation��� conditions, which is every minute of the day. RNs responded in protest, but Schwarzenegger unwittingly fanned the ���ames during a statewide women���s conference in Long Beach, Calif. that December. During his keynote speech, when California Nurses Association RNs unfurled a banner that read ���Hands Off Our Ratios,��� the governor dismissively responded, ���Pay no attention���They are the special interests���The special interests don���t like me in Sacramento because I am always kicking their butt.��� Nurses said, ���Game on.��� By the time the dust settled more than a year later, the score was nurses 6, Arnold zero. The recipe for the ���ght to protect California���s safe staf���ng required 10,000 nurses, a $300 million statewide special election, and 371 days to simmer. Schwarzenegger underestimated the reaction his move to sabotage the ratios would provoke. Buoyed by his celebrity and huge donations from corporate coffers, the governor thought he could 16 N AT I O N A L N U R S E sweep aside nurses and their concerns for patients. Instead his actions, and the nurses��� reaction, led to an energized, creative campaign spearheaded by RNs, who staged 107 separate protests and actions in little more than a year. The campaign not only saved the state���s RN-to-patient ratios, but served to invigorate labor in California while sinking Schwarzenegger���s approval rating by nearly half. When Schwarzenegger made his decision to go after the ratios, his approval stood at 70 percent, he had an unmatched fundraising base including signi���cant support from the hospitals, HMOs, and drug companies, and faced little public opposition. Within weeks of the announcement of his emergency regulations, CNA sponsored a radio ad focused on RNs and why the ratio law would bring nurses back to the bedside. And on Dec. 1, 2004, California nurses mobilized in force. More than 2,500 RNs travelled to Sacramento and circled the state Capitol, demanding ���Safe ratios now!��� Many of the nurses had never been politically active before, but became passionate about their ���special interest������patients and their safety. In addition, CNA ���led suit in court on Dec. 21, 2004, challenging the validity of Schwarzenegger���s emergency regulations. By now, the state news media were following the drama of ���RNs versus The Terminator.��� A headline on one story in the Economic Times in New Delhi, India read ���Nurses Body Slam Arnold.��� Throughout the spring and summer of 2005, CNA seized the initiative through a hectic protest schedule that sometimes included three or four protests a week. CNA sponsored a cable TV ad that ran during a ���lm biopic of Schwarzenegger, and dogged him with creative billboards across California. At each and every fundraising event that Schwarzenegger attended, he was greeted by a group of nurses, leading to the absurd sight of the ���Last Action Hero��� sneaking in the back door of events because he was afraid to be confronted by nurses at the front door. The CNA campaign was also marked by street theater and ���street heat��� as RNs protested in very public places as well. RNs, joined by W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G NOVEMBER 2012