National Nurses United

NewsBriefs:October 2007 11/19/07 2:51 PM Page 6 NewsBriefs RNs Vote to Reject UC Offer uring voting that took place between Nov. 4 and Nov. 15, University of California nurses spoke loud and clear to support their bargaining team's campaign to win a fair contract for 10,000 UC nurses represented by CNA/NNOC by rejecting their employer's final offer. UC's takeaway proposal had attempted to roll back hardwon provisions included in earlier contracts and to deny UC nurses basic protections that are standard contract features in CNA/NNOC's hospital chain contracts. Echoing several recent contract fights, one of the most important issues in UC negotiations is safe staffing. RNs are demanding further restrictions on unsafe floating, as well as a guarantee against cancelling nurses if meal and break coverage is inadequate, if the charge nurse has a patient assignment, or if ratios are not being met at all times. "We can always use extra nurses," said Janice Webb, RN, a member of both the UC bargaining team and the CNA/NNOC board of directors. "There are many units that don't have break relief coverage – extra nurses can go there." In addition to providing break relief, Webb said, nurses should never have their shift cancelled because patient influx and staffing needs are unpredictable. "As soon as the nurse goes home, something happens." UC is also demanding that nurses accept paid time off (PTO), a widely-abhorred policy. Under PTO, UC expects ill nurses to use 24 hours of vacation time before being allowed access to sick leave, a policy which pressures nurses to come to work feeling unwell. The right to same-day sick leave is especially crucial where health providers are concerned; not only would sick RNs be operating at lower capacity, they would also pose the threat of infection to patients with compromised immune systems, as well as to other employees. One staffing problem unique to the UC system is mandatory shift rotation, a system where nurses must change between months of working day shift and months of working night shift, regardless of seniority. Just as missing meal and rest breaks due to under- D 6 REGISTERED NURSE staffing can harm patient care, the inability to become accustomed to a sleep cycle for more than a month at a time leaves nurses less alert and with slower reaction times. "It's very, very unsafe," said Beth Kean, UC Division Director at CNA/NNOC. "Mandatory shift rotation was already recognized by other facilities as dangerously obsolete 20 years ago. UCSF and UCLA are the only facilities that still insist on enforcing this detrimental policy, which can lead to more errors in patient care." Also at stake are nurses' pensions and retiree health benefits, which Kean calls "a lightning rod," explaining that high-quality public sector retiree benefits are usually what attract many nurses to work at UC. Despite landmark protections won in 2005, UC's new proposal would have given the employer the power to change retiree benefits mid-contract. However, RNs' intense disapproval of the proposal led to it being dropped in the last session after six months of bargaining. While the key issues of staffing and benefits loom large above the bargaining table, Kean says that nurses are concerned about many other issues, one of which is protections against new technology. CNA/NNOC's proposal to UC includes contract language that would prohibit the use of technology to override or supplant nurses' professional judgment. Many UC departments have created a hostile environment of blame for nurses. UC Irvine has fired 13 RNs in the past four months alone, one of them after she reported that the newborn nursery was mistakenly stocked with adult doses of an infant vaccination. "Nurses are required by law to be patient advocates," explained Webb. Actions like those taken by UCI "make it more difficult for nurses to be patient advocates, and it tells new nurses not to speak up about problems. It compromises patient care." Many of the 13 fired nurses were longtime nurses, and each was fired for a minor error or a mistake in judgment that did not have any negative impact on patient care. When a CNA/NNOC nurse representative investigated the firing of the newborn nursery nurse who reported the vaccine error, UCI management's response was to suspend her. With only 24 hours' notice, 50 UCI RNs held an emergency vigil outside her investigatory meeting. Articles in the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register helped to draw the attention of the public and fellow UCI staff to the adversarial atmosphere against nurses at UCI. The nurse representative was returned to work with full back pay, but so far UCI has refused to return any of the 13 fired nurses to work. Ironically, UCI is a magnet hospital, which supposedly means that nurses are attracted to work and stay at UCI. UC's last contract with CNA/NNOC expired Jun. 30 and was extended to Sep. 30 with the agreement of both parties. The Public Employees Relations Board recently declared bargaining to be at an impasse, and state-facilitated mediation began Nov. 5. —staff report CALIFORNIA W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G NOVEMBER 2007

• Cover