National Nurses United

NewsBriefs:May 5/27/08 12:32 PM Page 6 Las Vegas RNs At St. Rose Back CNA/NNOC, Reject SEIU NEVADA undreds of registered nurses at one of Las Vegas' main hospital systems, St. Rose Dominican Hospitals, voted on May 7 to oust their current union, Service Employees International Union Local 1107, in favor of joining CNA/NNOC. The vote told SEIU loud and clear that St. Rose nurses held no confidence in its leadership, and CNA/NNOC called on SEIU to respect the nurses' vote and step aside. "St. Rose Dominican RNs have made it known that they want a change," said Zenei TriunfoCortez, RN, member of the CNA/NNOC Council of Presidents. "They want and deserve a more effective voice to advocate for their patients and to achieve the standards they have seen won by their colleagues in CNA/NNOC." St. Rose nurses said that the election, H 6 REGISTERED NURSE which covered 1,100 RNs working at three campuses – Siena, Rose de Lima, and San Martin – was prompted by SEIU's dismal record of representation, lack of serious work on patient advocacy, and by their desire to join a union that organizes nurses to push for real nursing practice and healthcare reform. Quite a number of CNA/NNOC's RN supporters were once active in SEIU, but became disillusioned as they observed that SEIU was not interested in mobilizing nurses to improve nursing care and healthcare. Christina Schofield, an RN working in special procedures at Siena, worked for a year for SEIU, starting in 2006 as an organizer, and eventually becoming a nurse alliance coordinator. An RN for more than 20 years, Schofield had lost a previous job for being too outspoken and was professionally driven to make nursing safer and better. She had W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G high hopes when she was hired, but said she quickly learned that the union did not want to organize nurses and was more preoccupied with consolidating power in upper management. "SEIU didn't really want to fight for ratios, for grievances," said Schofield. "They just wanted to take the collective power of the nurses for their own good, not for the good of the nurses. It was all about who has power, who has money, who's backing whom." Melanie Sisson, a post-anesthesia care unit RN, had a similar experience. As an RN who helped organize hospitals and bargain contracts for SEIU, Sisson found herself in 2007 being targeted for removal from her local elected board in a "do-over" election because she did not agree with the top-down approach of governing the union's business without nurse input. That election spurred an investigation and preliminary findings in April by the U.S. Department of Labor that Local 1107 used union resources to campaign for one slate of nurse leaders over another in violation of labor law. "This is Andy Stern's philosophy," said M AY 2 0 0 8

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