National Nurses United

rep and PPC member for the post-anesthe- sia care unit since 2008. At Research Medical Center, the PPC meets on the first Thursday of the month from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. All of the PPC members are also nurse reps. Their meet- ings generally follow the same format, with the first half of the meeting involved with taking attendance, rounding via text to all union leadership and then rounding to all the break rooms. The PPC members then pair off to do in-person rounding, updating each union bulletin board by removing out- of-date info and posting the most recent PPC meeting minutes and recommenda- tions as well as the latest ADO report. They also pick up any new ADOs and talk to nurses on break about their concerns. When rounding is done, the PPC goes over "old business," issues that they are still work- ing on, and then they tackle "new business" and write recommendations to the CNO. The last hour of the meeting, PPC members go over the ADOs they collected during round- ing and fill out the ADO report forms. Then they make recommendations for improving or fixing issues. Rodarmel, who has worked at Research for 31 years, including 13 years as an RN, uses those recommendations to write the PPC minutes that get submitted to the CNO for her responses. The staffing committee, comprising four PPC members and an observer, meets quar- terly for an hour before the PPC meeting starts, and reports their findings to the PPC. Meeting with Management ucsd's ppc meets every three months with UC management for one-and-a-half hours. "Before we meet with management, we prior- itize what we want to discuss with the CNO," said Kennedy, who has worked in the neuro ICU for seven years. "We have to decide which issues are the most pressing because we will only get to maybe four or five of them." Once that list of issues is prioritized, PPC members talk to people who are affected by each issue and come up with a strategy to discuss them with management. "If it's a new and pressing issue, we will bring in nurses to talk about the issue," said Kennedy, who has been an RN since 2009. A week before the meeting with manage- ment, UCSD's PPC sends out the agenda. The CNO is required to attend per the collective bargaining agreement, and she will invite the appropriate directors to attend as well. For example, if there are security issues, she will invite the directors of security. "The point is a show of solidar- ity," said Kennedy, who notes that the directors are not required to attend. For the first hour, the PPC discusses the agenda and assigns speakers who are usually the rep from the department where issues are occurring. Then management arrives. Once management leaves, the PPC spends the last 30 minutes summarizing and discussing the meeting. "We had our meeting with management in March and at our April PPC meeting we discussed four emerging issues: east campus staffing, telemetry training and ventilator patients on IMUs, and NP layoffs," said Kennedy. "We discussed recommendations and fight-back strategies. Next month it could be new issues or the same issues, it just depends on how things develop. Then in June we will meet with the CNO, give our recommendations on new issues and follow up on past recommendations." At Research Medical Center, the current CNO has been sending a designee to attend PPC meetings. "Sometimes we are just shar- ing information," said Rodarmel who has been a PPC member since 2011 and chair since 2014. "Sometimes the CNO's designee will say they need to talk to the CNO before they can answer our questions." The PPC has called for additional meet- ings with management when there are urgent issues to be addressed. "For example, we have charge nurses on our orthopedic and nephrol- ogy units (who at this facility are not part of the bargaining unit) who will assign nurses to care for patients in units that are not in close proximity to the rest of their patients, which makes it an unsafe assignment," said Rodarmel. "Our recommendation was that the charge nurses need to be trained on how to make appropriate safe assignments, even if that resulted in moving patients to cluster them closer together. We now have a dispute resolution meeting with CNO about it." Meaningful Meetings regular meetings are the key to a strong PPC. "The PPC is where we confront nurse leadership with problems that nurses bring to our attention," said Kennedy. "We are able to bypass the chain of command and escalate directly to the top, make recommendations, and hold leadership accountable." "The PPC is how we get nurses involved," said Kennedy. "Some are afraid to let their managers know about problems. People feel empowered just by being in the room. Surrounded by nurses in the PPC, they will talk and say things they never would have said during rounds. Rodarmel agrees. "You can use the PPC to expedite issues quickly, to organize inter- nal actions, get out information to your members quickly," said Rodarmel. "The more nurses realize what the PPC is, the better they can utilize that resource. It gives nurses a monthly voice directly to the CNO and holds them accountable through their responses." When Tayag first got involved with the PPC, some nurses were afraid to speak up for fear of retaliation. But as Tayag noted, "If you speak up for nurses and patients, you have protection as a union nurse and the support of our PPC leaders." "I have a big mouth," said Tayag who has been a PPC member for 16 years. "I was told by my father that you fight for the people who cannot fight. Stand up. That's why I first got involved as a nurse rep for my unit and with the PPC." Chuleenan Svetvilas is a communications specialist at National Nurses United. 18 N A T I O N A L N U R S E 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 A P R I L | M AY | J U N E 2 0 2 4

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