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10 N A T I O N A L N U R S E W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G J U LY | A U G U S T 2 0 1 5 We continue our explorations of the life and career of Kay McVay, a longtime inten- sive care unit RN at Kaiser Permanente and president emeritus of the California Nurses Association (CNA). In this installment, McVay discusses the historic lack of retire- ment security for registered nurses. When did the subject of retirement first come on your radar? Well, to be honest, I didn't think anything of retiring, ever. The idea of stop working never entered my mind. I liked being a nurse and thought I'd never stop! So you obviously did retire from bedside nurs- ing, in 1996 at age 62. What prompted that? Well, I was working at Kaiser Permanente in Martinez, and they decided to close Martinez as a full-service hospital and transfer most of us to another facility. I was 62 and just knew I would not fit in where they were planning to put me, so I was thinking, "Maybe I should just retire." So that's what I did. So did you receive any retirement benefits from Kaiser? I do have a retiree health plan that I wouldn't give up for any amount of money, but I didn't have a real retirement fund that I could collect, for income. And a main reason why I worked for Kaiser for decades and never ended up with a real pension has to do with some very bad decisions made by the old CNA, which was made up of mostly nurse managers, administrators, and academics. We called them "The Sorority Sisters," and they controlled CNA until 1993, when the staff nurses finally organized to take over the board. Sounds juicy. What happened? Well, up until 1976, all the nurses who worked for Kaiser had the standard defined- benefit pension plan that all unionized Kaiser employees had. It had already been in exis- tence for some 20 years. But then, in 1976, The Sorority Sisters basically gave away the defined-benefit pension plan in exchange for a defined-contribution 401(k)-type plan. Let's just say it was hardly an even exchange, and a huge mistake. The 401(k) plan for a long time also had these high fees that really ate into whatever measly returns we were getting on our accounts. And I couldn't contribute much to speak of, anyway. Nurses had low pay for such a long time. We didn't even hit the $20 per hour mark until like 1994 or 1995, toward the end of my career. And every penny I had went into the kids and the house and everything like that. Why did they so easily give away such a valuable benefit? They were just really shortsighted and thinking about themselves. A lot of them were climbers and careerists, and didn't think they'd stay in one place long enough to qualify for, or vest, in any pension. They thought all nurses were the same way, and probably also that women would just rely on their husbands' retirement plans. That's terrible. So everybody lost their pensions? Well, nurses in 1976 were given the choice whether to convert or stay in the defined- benefit pension, and some nurses did decide to stay. So Kaiser nurses have a really great, defined-benefit pension now. Tell me about how nurses won that. Well, retirement security was identified as a priority in the late 1990s, and we started making various proposals. The huge Kaiser strikes of 1997 and 1998 really grew our power, and in 2002 bargaining, we were able to introduce and win a defined-benefit pension. It was the first one Kaiser nurses had seen in decades. Our staff did all the research and calculated every scenario, and basically came to the conclusion that our nurses would be able to collect at least two and a half times more under a defined- benefit plan than in managing their own 401(k) plans. What did the nurses think? Well, we did a ton of education with the nurses about what this meant. And the overwhelming majority of nurses were just thrilled. The nurses who never gave up their old Kaiser pensions were really happy, too, that there was this bridge between their old plan and the new one. Everyone was now going to have a guaranteed income, instead of having something based on how much or how well you invested. I'm sorry, but most nurses are nurses because they want to focus on caring for people. We're not day traders or stockbrokers. If we were, we would have done that, and not nursing! But what about yourself? The pension plan happened too late for you. Yes, it did. Thank god CNA needed me and I was able to still keep working here for a while. But now that I and my husband Richard are no longer able to work anymore, yes, it has been difficult. Richard has his bus driver pension, his steelworkers' pension, and we both have Social Security, but I'm always watching it extremely close, and making sure we're not overspending. My situation is just one example of how we can't solely depend on private companies for our retirement security. There needs to be retirement security for all Americans, and that means improving and strengthening programs like Social Security. "Conversations with Kay" appears in each issue of National Nurse. Through McVay's stories, we docu- ment the origins of the modern staff RN movement as well as the changing practice and culture of nurs- ing and healthcare. Conversations with Kay NEWS BRIEFS