National Nurses United

NewsBriefs:March alt 2 4/22/09 3:52 PM Page 6 Medical Center in Apple Valley, St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka, and Petaluma Valley Hospital. RNs have been bargaining since February and while some contracts have already expired, others do not until June 30. "We need a master contract so that nurses can move within the organization and so that we can be treated equally," said Barb Wiebell, a resource-float pool RN at St. Joseph in Eureka and a member of the bargaining team. "It shouldn't make any difference whether you work in this hospital or that." Wiebell reports that adequate staffing is a key bargaining issue. At her hospital, management has cut ancillary and support staff "to the bone" and RNs as a result are forced to deal with housekeeping, pharmacy, and supply issues that detract from nursing care. Another major demand is improved re tiree health and benefits for RNs. Nurses say the current $250 stipend toward medical expenses is too meager to help, as insurance plan premiums can run upwards of $700 per month. "It's not adequate," said Wiebell. "You can work 40 years and if you retire before Medicare kicks in, you're left without support. You take care of other people all your life, but the profession doesn't reciprocate." St. Joseph RNs are also seeking to obtain organizing agreements in this year's negotiations for several nonunionized hospitals in Orange County, Calif. and one in Texas to lay the groundwork for a future master contract covering all St. Joseph RNs. Besides CHW and St. Joseph, some 1,700 RNs working for Daughters of Charity hospitals are hard at work preparing for bargaining with that chain this spring. Contracts also expire at the end of June. The Daughters RNs are going to propose a master contract for the four facilities—Seton Medical Center, St. Vincent Medical Center, O'Connor Hospital, and Saint Louise Regional Hospital—and are coordinating bargaining. "My personal goal is to bring all the Daughters hospitals up to the same standards," said Debra Amour, an ICU RN at Seton Medical Center in Daly City, Calif. and a bargaining team member. Their main issues are also maintaining staffing ratios to ensure patient safety, chiefly by securing dedicated break relief RNs as well as preventing their employers from substituting licensed vocational nurses for RNs, winning retiree health benefits for all Daughters RNs, improving pensions, and standing firm against takeaways. Nella Manaytay, a critical care unit RN at 6 REGISTERED NURSE The St. Joseph Health System bargaining team is proposing a master contract this year and fighting for better staffing and retiree benefits. St. Vincent's in Los Angeles, reports that her hospital is using LVNs on the medical-surgical floors instead of RNs. The managers try to pressure RNs into handling IVs for the LVNs, what they call "IV piggybacks." "We need to be able to enforce ratios in the contract," said Manaytay. "I'm not covering an LVN." Like St. Joseph RNs, another critical issue for Daughters RNs that they hope to resolve in this year's bargaining is lack of retiree health benefits. "We have nothing right now," said Amour. "They just figure you're okay with Medicare and then it's 'Hasta la vista, baby.'" —staff report Accord with SEIU Paves Way for National RN Movement NATIONAL C na/nnoc in March reached a seminal agreement with the Service Employees International Union to put past differences aside and instead cooperate in pushing to pass the Employee Free Choice Act and to rapidly unionize the healthcare sector. Under the accord, the two groups agreed that CNA/NNOC will organize registered nurses and speak for them in the legislative and regulatory arenas. SEIU will organize all other healthcare workers and support state efforts to pass single-payer legislation, the kind of healthcare system that CNA/NNOC has long endorsed. Coming just a few weeks after CNA/ NNOC announced that it will be joining forces with United American Nurses and the Massachusetts Nurses Association, this latest agreement positions CNA/NNOC as the preeminent national group unionizing registered nurses and representing them in collective bargaining, nursing practice, improving working conditions, and healthcare reform. "This is an exciting new day for nurses and patients," said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of CNA/NNOC. "This agreement provides a huge spark for the emergence of a more powerful, unified W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G national movement that is needed to more effectively challenge healthcare industry layoffs and attacks on RN economic and professional standards and patient care conditions. It will also strengthen the ability of all directcare RNs to fight for real healthcare reform and advocate for improved patient care conditions and stronger patient safety legislation from coast to coast." Both unions plan to launch an intensive national organizing campaign, focusing on the country's largest hospital systems. Each has agreed not to "raid" the other's membership, and to support each other's organizing efforts. In Florida, SEIU and CNA/NNOC agreed to create a new joint RN organization that will represent SEIU's current RN members as well as RNs organized in the future. CNA/NNOC RN leaders praised the agreement as coming at the right moment and as the smart thing to do in creating a national nurses movement. "It's better to focus our time, energy, and resources into being productive and working together against common obstacles, like the hospital industry," said Geri Jenkins, RN and a member of the CNA/NNOC Council of Presidents. "It's very exciting that RNs are moving toward one, strong, unified voice that stands up for the highest patient care standards." – staff report APRIL 2009

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