National Nurses United

NewsBriefs:March alt 2 4/22/09 3:52 PM Page 4 NewsBriefs Vegas RNs' Election to Join CNA/NNOC Pays Off St. Rose Dominican RNs in Las Vegas celebrate their hard-fought election victory to join CNA/NNOC NEVADA A bout 1,100 Las Vegas-area RNs will unite with 10,500 Catholic Healthcare West colleagues after they voted on April 1 by 76 percent to be represented by CNA/NNOC. The RNs, who work at three campuses of St. Rose Dominican Hospitals, said that they looked forward to bargaining a strong contract with the established group of CHW RNs already represented by CNA/NNOC, to tackling nursing problems such as understaffing by helping pass a Nevada ratio bill, and to improving working conditions so that patients ultimately benefit from safer care. "This is a beginning and we are going to move forward now," said Portia Fiesta, an intermediate medical care RN at the Siena campus in Henderson. Joining forces with other RNs throughout the CHW system "will give us much greater strength to fight for our patients." A majority of St. Rose RNs had wanted to switch representation to CNA/NNOC for some time. Recently, an agreement with the Service Employees International Union 4 REGISTERED NURSE speeded up that process. "I think that CNA can help us a lot," said Mary Lou Pellegrino, an ICU RN at the De Lima campus. "I like what it's doing on ratios and its track record in general. As long as I'm working, I want things to be better." Maria Fehlig reported that Nevada RNs are working in unsafe conditions and need a strong union and contract to support their advocacy on behalf of patients. As an emerW W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G gency department RN at the Siena campus, Fehlig has spoken up about dangerously high ratios in her unit but not seen improvements. "We were totally slammed," said Fehlig about one particularly bad period last winter. "It's so unsafe. We were treating people sitting in chairs, standing up. The ER was wallto-wall, standing room only." She said that she looks forward to leveraging the joint power of CHW RNs within CNA/NNOC to better working conditions and protect patients. Fehlig said she had been skeptical at first of joining a different union, but was won over by the professionalism of CNA/NNOC organizers and how they produced verifiable facts to back up all their statements. "I thought, 'Wow.' This is a union that I need to belong to," she said. "I can't ever see myself in anything else. I like how CNA/NNOC goes beyond the hospital. They're not just representing you at your hospital, but representing you as a profession." —staff report APRIL 2009

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