National Nurses United

Profile:3 10/18/07 9:01 AM Page 23 A CNA/NNOC board member since 1999, Jenkins at that time was deep in bargaining talks with the state for the UC nurses' new contract. The biggest, most contentious obstacle on the table was still the issue of merit pay. Under the budget-driven, management-controlled system, the pay inequities among members had become too glaring to ignore: New nurse graduates were making $22 per hour – what the senior nurses with 20 years of experience were making. The nurses wanted to scrap merit pay for a step system, and UC swore they would never abandon it because it was "the heart" of their compensation package. With UC not budging, the RNs took a strike vote and decided to walk out over the merit pay issue. After they submitted their 10 days' notice, UC caved. Their success was not an isolated event, but only possible through years of organizing the UC nurses. "We were hot to settle [the merit pay issue] once and for all," said Jenkins. "But it was something we built up to over a couple of contracts. People have a lot of misconceptions about what negotiations are. They think you just go in there and say this is what you want. But there's a lot of organizing and getting the nurses unified around their issues that has to happen first." The RNs in San Diego were not always so well organized. In fact, when Jenkins started getting active in CNA/NNOC in the late 1990s, the region's members consisted of just UCSD nurses and about 30 RNs at the San Diego Blood Bank. Many of the nurses in the area, which included those working in the Scripps hospitals, the Palomar Pomerado healthcare district, the Tri-City healthcare district, and Alvarado Hospital Medical Center, were not unionized. At that time, CNA/NNOC was still run by leadership that was more comfortable focusing on nurse education and management – not going into hospitals and doing the tough work of organizing staff RNs. After CNA/NNOC's staff nurse revolt in 1992 and its subsequent OCTOBER 2007 disaffiliation from the American Nurses Association, it decided to aggressively organize Southern California nurses, with San Diego as an important component of that plan and Jenkins playing a big role in organizing. She said there was a desperate need. "In Southern California, the wage standards were so low and nurses couldn't take a stand and speak up because they didn't have the security and protection of a union behind them," she said. "We really had to bring up the standard for the whole community." The challenge now is to motivate RNs to push for change in the political arena, said Jenkins. While California state staffing ratios have helped, she believes the healthcare industry will continue to put more pressures and responsibilities onto direct caregivers. "We need to educate nurses to see beyond their facility," she said. "The real challenge for CNA/NNOC is to help people make the political connection between what we do and their work life. Unless it affects them personally, they don't make the connection." One way to help nurses connect the dots is to pull them into political events CNA/NNOC organizes. She feels it's important to expose RNs to experiences where they can see themselves in action and link those activities to results. Despite the challenges, Jenkins said she has never regretted nursing as a career and, overall, has found it to be incredibly fulfilling. A native San Diegan, she started college as a history major, but says she "fell into" nursing. "All of my friend, we have that 60s mentality where you ask yourself, 'Is what I'm doing meaningful?'" Jenkins said. "You don't have to worry about that when you're a nurse. You know when you go to work that what you're doing is meaningful and significant." Malinda Markowitz listening to malinda markowitz, rn talk about how she's arrived at this point in her nursing career and as a leader on the CNA/NNOC board of directors, it's obvious her success is largely based on determination and hard work. However cliché it may sound, it's true. She managed to apply to and graduate from nursing school despite having dropped out of high school at age 16 to get married and have her first child. When she applied for the first job of her life, to be a nursing assistant while she was still in school, the department manager bluntly asked her why the hospital should hire someone with zero work experience. Markowitz replied just as straightforwardly that she loved working with patients, that she was reliable and conscientious, and that the manager needed to give her a chance. She got the job. Though it's clear that she was always inherently strong of will, Markowitz credits CNA/NNOC for providing a structure within which she could learn, grow, and mature into the person that she is W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G REGISTERED NURSE 23

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