As Registered Nurses, we know all too well that working in a hospital these days means engaging in a daily struggle to provide care in an industry more concerned about it’s bottom-line than about providing patient care.
Registered Nurses struggle day in and day out to provide care without adequate staffing and resources. Non-RN hospital staff are struggling to fulfill essential hospital functions with ever decreasing numbers of staff, while worrying that they’ll be the next to be laid off.
Our patients, left to wonder if a nurse will be available to help if they ring their call-lights and whether their hospital bills will bankrupt their families are likely the most affected.
Under the pact, SEIU and CNA/NNOC, the largest unions in the nation representing healthcare workers and registered nurses, respectively, will work together to bring union representation to all non-union RNs and other healthcare employees and step up efforts to enact Employee Free Choice Act.
The resulting massive increase in unionization will improve the experience of providing and receiving care in US hospitals—and the resulting movement will change the whole nature of how health care is provided in the US.
In the words of Rose Ann DeMoro, the Executive Director of CNA/NNOC, the nation's largest organization of direct care RNs with 85,000 members in all 50 states:
"This is an exciting new day for nurses and patients across the nation. This agreement provides a huge spark for the emergence of a more powerful, unified national movement that is needed to more effectively challenge healthcare industry layoffs and attacks on RN economic and professional standards and patient care conditions. It will also strengthen the ability of all direct-care RNs to fight for real healthcare reform and advocate for improved patient care conditions and stronger patient safety legislation from coast to coast."
In the words of Andy Stern, President of SEIU, the nation’s largest healthcare union:
"This marks the beginning of a new future for nurses and other healthcare workers and their patients throughout this nation. We are lining up to make sweeping changes to this country’s broken healthcare system, and as we wait for the starting gun it is imperative that we put the past behind us and move forward by putting all healthcare workers in the strongest possible position to define reform, move legislation, and make the new healthcare system operational. Is this accord surprising? Perhaps, but those who recognize our shared value of making sure registered nurses and other healthcare workers have not only a say but a critical role in helping reshape a failed system into something that actually helps people know that this is the right step to help us meet the challenge and the call of this moment.”
Among key elements of the pact:
• The two unions will work together to organize non-union hospital workers throughout the country, with CNA/NNOC as the leading voice for RNs, and SEIU as the leading voice for all other hospital workers.
• The unions will launch an intensive national organizing campaign with an initial focus on the nation’s largest hospital systems.
• In addition to organizing, SEIU and CNA/NNOC will coordinate on a broad range of other issues from bargaining with common employers to the campaign to enact the Employee Free Choice Act.
• SEIU and CNA/NNOC publicly endorse measures that allow states to adopt single-payer health care systems.
• Both parties will refrain from "raiding," seeking to displace the existing members of the other's organization, or from interference in the other's internal affairs.
• The two unions will create a new joint RN organization in Florida to represent current and future RNs of both unions. In all other states, SEIU will continue to represent their current RN members in collective bargaining.
Ester Kaplan, in The Nation Magazine's June 16th edition (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080616/kaplan), takes a look at the discord, disagreements, and history that has fueled the recent clashes between progressive unions like CNA/NNOC and UHW with SEIU.
SEIU's up and coming convention in Puerto Rico offers a chance to pull back from the brink of corporate unionism that might provide a flash-in-the-pan increase of union density, but because it was formed from the top down, would not consist of committed, invested workers who would be able to sustain the union over time.
Dissent from without as well as from within is sending a message to Stern: that he had better come up with a more democratic way to lead his union or get out of the way so that others can.
I'm an RN on staff at SEIU and would like to provide an update to 4SEIU's May 8 post, "It's Time: Honor RNs' Call for an End to Raiding, Renewed Focus on Unity".
CNA is devoting massive resources to divide nurses at a critical time when workers need each other and patients need them most. In addition to the Vegas raid attempt, the CNA is actively trying to decertify SEIU nurses throughout California and elsewhere in the country. In March, the CNA waged an aggressive "vote no" campaign in Ohio, forcing the cancellation of union elections for 8,300 nurses and hospital workers in nine hospitals. In recent years the CNA also has raided other unions or intervened in other unions' organizing drives in Hawaii, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas, and other states.
In the wake of CNA's actions that were described here, CNA failed to organize 844 registered nurses at St. Agnes Medical center in Fresno, California.
According to a report by the Fresno Bee, CNA is accusing the hospital of harrassing and intimidating nurses--an all-too common occurrence those of us in the labor movement have come to know. (See: http://www.fresnobee.com/busin...
That's why SEIU has been mobilizing nurses and other healthcare employees to challenge their employers to agree to a free and fair organizing process.
CNA, on the other hand, has chosen to fight other unions.
From www.shameoncna.com: Since 2001, fully 76% of the CNA's union membership growth (30,396 members) has come from "raids" of other unions (2,453), affiliation agreements (6,600), and interventions in SEIU's fair organizing agreements with CHW and Tenet (14,085). After SEIU mounted extensive multi-year campaigns to win these agreements, the CNA subsequently became a party to them by challenging them as "back-room deals" until they received similar agreements.
There's enough working against us--like employers who utilize our weak labor laws to violate workers' rights--to have in-fighting among labor organizations.
Toward that end, SEIU is renewing our call for a mutual no-raid/no-interference agreement with CNA and other nurse organizations. And, at the urging of AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, we've committed to a formal mediation process with CNA.
For the 85% of RNs in this country who are without a union voice, this can't happen soon enough.
According to a lawsuit filed on behalf of nurses practicing in Iowa today, the California Nurses Association (CNA) violated Iowa state law by improperly mailing promotional materials to 2,000 nurses represented by the SEIU Local 199. The suit charges the CNA broke the Iowa Trade Secrets Act when it sent unsolicited materials to the homes of Iowa nurses after illegally attaining a private mailing list of SEIU members earlier this year...
As an RN of 29 years and a CNA/NNOC RN who witnessed the dramatic vote for change by St. Rose Las Vegas RNs, who voted by 53% for CNA/NNOC, I am proud to post this diary today.
In the last few years, America's RNs have formed-at last-a National Nurses' Movement, with the creation of the first national union of RNs. So far we are 80,000 RNs banding together for guaranteed healthcare, nursing practice, and a progressive labor movement, and that number grows daily. As patient advocates we believe that this is the only path towards making sure that every one of our patients get the care they deserve.
You may know CNA/NNOC for its political profile, but it is the nurse organizing that has allowed us to make a difference for RNs across the country. Here's a quick update on the incredible progress we're making just this week:
How are you commemorating National Nurses Week—this week set aside annually to honor the everyday heroes in the nursing profession?
During National Nurses Week and throughout the year, SEIU nurses want to be united, not divided—with other nurses, with other healthcare workers, with patient care advocates—to work for a quality care environment.
But sadly, SEIU nurses in Nevada and around the country are spending the week renewing their call for an end to the divisive actions of the California Nurses Association (CNA), which is busy declaring “real war” on nurses. The outcome of an election over union representation remains in balance for 1,000 nurses at three Las Vegas hospitals, after months of CNA's lies and false promises failed to capture enough votes to lure nurses away from SEIU.
CNA is devoting massive resources to divide nurses at a critical time when workers need each other and patients need them most. In addition to the Vegas raid attempt, the CNA is actively trying to decertify SEIU nurses throughout California and elsewhere in the country. In March, the CNA waged an aggressive "vote no" campaign in Ohio, forcing the cancellation of union elections for 8,300 nurses and hospital workers in nine hospitals. In recent years the CNA also has raided other unions or intervened in other unions' organizing drives in Hawaii, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas, and other states. For more information on any of these, go to www.shameoncna.com/.
So back to the question of how best to commemorate National Nurses Week. How about by signing a mutual no-raid agreement? SEIU is offering to sign one with the CNA and its allied organizations anytime and anywhere.
Please, rather than dividing the too-few nurses who already have a union voice, let's unite the 85% who don't—for patients and for the profession.
There is a new and important video out in the ongoing debate about the last-minute sabotage of a union election for hospital workers in Ohio.
Too much of this debate in the in the blogosphere is happening between representatives of the unions on both sides (myself included)--and it's not hard to understand why. The incredibly busy lives of hospital workers, passionate though they may be about their fight for a voice on the job, don't leave much time for online debate.
For this video, a number of workers took the time to sit with us and tell their stories. They narrate the span of their campaign--from its roots 3+ years ago, through the elections-that-never-were two months ago, to their remarkable and persistent willingness to fight for their rights, for the vote they worked so hard to secure.
At 9+ minutes, it's a bit long, but as it was worth their time to make it, it's worth our time to watch.
(This debate remains provocative - promoted by Chris Bowers)
I'm Zenei Triunfo-Cortez, RN, one of four members of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee's Council of Presidents. I have been a direct care nurse for over thirty years, currently in the post-anesthesia unit.
Thank you to OpenLeft for sponsoring this debate between CNA/NNOC and SEIU. We've come to a turning point in the labor movement: a choice between a progressive, democratic, feminist social movement committed to single-payer healthcare reform, as represented by CNA/NNOC, or company unionism based on corporate partnerships, as represented by Andy Stern of SEIU International. Forward or back?
And the massive fight within labor is continuing, with nasty raids from both SEIU and CNA on each other's union. Remember, there are three sides here. One is SEIU International, run by Andy Stern, another is the California Nurses Association, and the third is an internal local of SEIU called SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West. There's a bitter fight between SEIU International and CNA, and a bitter internal fight between SEIU International and SEIU-UHW. It's kind of like a primary contest and a general election contest, with the future of SEIU being debated internally even as the union is facing a threat from the outside in the form of an association that believes in organizing nurses only instead of the entire hospital working staff (it's trade unionism instead of industrial unionism).
On the heels of a series of incidents in California where female nurses have been followed and harassed by mostly male SEIU staffers, and in the wake of SEIU's violent attack on the peaceful Labor Notes conference, a California Superior Court has issued a temporary restraining order against Andy Stern, President of SEIU, and his staff, ordering them to stay away from nurses with the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.
Stern will appear in court on May 1st for a hearing on whether to issue a permanent restraining order. SEIU claims its actions are in retaliation for a disputed election in Ohio where Catholic Healthcare Partners filed for an election to choose SEIU as their company union.
SEIU's recent actions makes clear why RNs around the country do not have a good opinion of their organization.
The story is in the LA Times:
URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/lo... California nurses union gets restraining order against SEIU - Los Angeles Times
Andy Stern's SEIU International has found legitimate voting problems with a California local, United Health Care Workers West and the delegate selection process to the national convention to be held later this summer. It's a significant escalation of the fight that has been going on for a long time. The central premise of UHW's 'theory of change' is that union democracy and member involvement is critical for the legitimacy and long-term growth of the labor movement, so the allegation by SEIU International is a serious charge.
The nuts and bolts of union delegate selection is as complicated as the primary and caucus process in Democratic politics, so I won't go too much into the details. The gist is that the national convention is where union policy for the international is set, and the delegates are a mix of directly elected representatives and superdelegates who are elected union officials. Here's SEIU's charge.
More than 95 percent of the rank-and-file members of SEIU local union United Healthcare Workers West (UHW-W) were intentionally excluded by UHW-W from running for delegate to the SEIU International Convention, a violation of multiple federal laws because it undermines member democracy.
The illegal and undemocratic election process affects an estimated one third of UHW-W's anticipated 146-member delegation. Approximately 2,000 delegates total are eligible to participate at the SEIU Convention, to be held June 2-4 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
I have verified from SEIU-UHW that this charge is true, and that SEIU-UHW is going to rerun the election. From what I understand, the SEIU convention in June is somewhere in between a real rule-making body and a media junket oriented convention similar to a modern political convention. That is, who is and isn't a delegate is akin to a reward for activists rather than a powerful position, but there are aspects to being a delegate that carry some element of power. Just as it was not expected that being a superdelegate would matter in the Democratic nominating fight, it is not expected that being a delegate matters in Puerto Rico. I could be wrong, and I'm still learning, and I appreciate the corrections that will certainly come in the comments.
This has become a cudgel in the growing fight between the two groups within SEIU, but it also alters the nature of the convention itself. There will be more attention placed on the decisions made in Puerto Rico, and it is clear that SEIU-UHW erred in their illegal expansion of the franchise to stewards but not to all members in the delegate selection process.
SEIU in Chicago threatened similar tactics against the Eugene Victor Debs dinner sponsored by the local Democratic Socialists of America chapter. As with the Labor Notes conference, DeMoro voluntarily withdrew from the event.
The following is a report by Ken Paff, founder of Teamsters for a Democratic Union, and Labor Notes activist, of the SEIU disruption of the Labor Notes banquet that honored Rose Ann DeMoro, CNA executive director.
If you missed Matt's earlier post, there is a blood feud between the California Nurses Association and SEIU. SEIU operates under a corporate structure where the DC leaders, in essence, feel they know more than the local leadership, and impose their plans on local members. They are willing to accept a lesser settlement in return for increasing union density. The quest for increased union density often means that local concerns are not addressed, grievances are not handled, etc. The CNA, on the other hand, is a militant union of RN's that takes on all comers. It was instrumental in defeating Schwarzenegger's attempts to pander to extreme right wing republicans at the beginning of his first term. Below the fold is Ken Paff's report:
I've invited all three labor unions to post on OpenLeft. They are constrained by various legal problems in discussing the fights. We'll see how it goes. The comments on my last post were really illuminating, and it is worth noting that CNA did stand up to Governor Schwarzenegger when no one else would, and that SEIU and nurses associations have been raiding each other and merging for a long time.
I stand by my observations that CNA acted incredibly badly in Ohio and that their use of violence in California was obscene.
The California Nurse's Association is beginning to 'raid' SEIU all over the country, and it's getting quite heated. A raid is like the unionization of a workplace when there's already a union in place. It's a takeover, sort of like a primary fight. They are doing it in Nevada and in Ohio, and now in California. And it's getting bad.
A nasty fight erupted at L.A. County hospitals today when organizers for the California Nurses Assn. launched a campaign to persuade 6,000 county-employed nurses to ditch the Service Employees International Union, the powerful organization that represents them, and join the CNA instead, Garrett Therolf reports.
Police arrested a CNA organizer accused of slapping an SEIU organizer and of stomping on the foot of another. A county official who asked for anonymity claimed CNA organizers dressed up as nurses so they could get into areas of the hospital normally off limits.
"The nurses are leaving SEIU and coming to CNA. That is a fact," said Jill Furillo, CNA's Southern California director. "Los Angeles County hospitals are the most horrendous and horrible facilities. The patients and nurses have been suffering in those places."
That's news to Elizabeth Brennan, a spokeswoman for SEIU Local 721.
"There is no question that the nurses will continue to be represented by SEIU," Brennan said. "Nurses won a record raise last year because they are united as an entire healthcare team with other Los Angeles County employees and other healthcare workers -- and that helps improve the quality of healthcare in the county."
My colleague at SEIU, Nadia Stefko, penned this blog post. I think it really helps get us out of the weeds here and explain what's really going on between CNA and SEIU.
By now you may feel like you've heard quite enough of the back-and-forth between SEIU and the CNA over union representation of nurses and healthcare workers in Ohio. You may have also heard that the dispute runs deep and wide and goes back years and across state lines into Nevada, California, Texas and several others, and that the encounters have become more extreme.
And perhaps you're wondering why should I care?
If this were just about CNA and SEIU, or even just about a dispute at an isolated hospital in one state, you could move on. The thing is, these struggles are not taking place in a vacuum and what becomes of them has far-reaching impact that touches us all. At a time when the economy is bad and getting worse, and the number of workers represented by a union in this country is an anemic 12%, labor unions face a choice?and workers everywhere face the consequences.
Unions can fight for turf within the ever-shrinking pool of unionized workers, or we can get back on the offensive by reaching out to help more workers join unions to strengthen the hand of more working families.
SEIU has been at the forefront of unions doing exactly this since 1996. And the results speak for themselves. Since 1996, more than 1 million new members have united to join SEIU. Today SEIU represents 1.9 million workers. These new members range from child care workers to city employees in nonunion right to work states like Texas and Arizona to, significantly, hospital workers.
By contrast, CNA, harking back to old-school craft unionism, has pursued an elitist agenda that not only excludes hospital workers who aren?t registered nurses, it prevents registered nurses who want to join a union other than CNA from doing so simply because it's not the CNA.
Six days before union elections at nine hospitals in Ohio?one with unprecedented ground rules that resulted from three-plus years of hard work by hospital workers, their community allies, and SEIU to hammer out fair election guidelines with the state's largest health care system?CNA dropped into the state. CAN organizers ran a fiercely anti-union campaign encouraging workers to "vote no." Their tactics so poisoned the environment that the elections were cancelled. I won't go into detail here it's all detailed in this timeline: http://www.shameoncna.com/incl...
By disrupting this process, CNA sent an unmistakable message to the hospital industry: if a hospital agrees to a fair organizing process, it will be subjected to outlandish accusations of "company unionism" and "backroom deals."
The CNA's actions in Ohio represent a major setback in the labor movement's efforts to raise the standard of employer conduct in organizing campaigns. And it's not the first time CAN has used such divisive tactics to poach members from an existing union or otherwise divide workers who are in the process of forming a union. It's happening in California, Nevada, Texas, and elsewhere.
But why might it matter to you? It should if you (you being a working person, a progressive, a consumer in the American economy, or all 3) because this approach undermines the future of the labor movement. At this time of historic inequality and utter insecurity in the American economy, workers need more than ever the strength in community that comes from being organized at work.
In the healthcare sector alone, there are nine million workers out there who don?t have a union. As boomers age, our healthcare needs grow, and the industry's identity crisis drags on, healthcare workers united in unions have a crucial role to play.
The same is true for the other industries that employ hundreds of millions of American workers88% of whom don't have a voice on the job.
But our ability as workers, progressives, and consumers to sit at the big kids' table depends on our ability to grow and our ability to work together. On a national scale, we?re living the reality of what happens when a smaller and smaller percentage of workers stand together: corporations get to have a bigger and bigger say in the way things work and who gets what.
But at SEIU, we're living the reality of what happens when workers--with tremendous courage and at great odds--stand together for the interests of all working people: lives, neighborhoods, cities, and whole industries are transformed for the better.
Experience has taught us the hard lesson that circling the wagons simply doesn't work. And our progressive sensibilities--our concern for the common good--confirm it.
This struggle matters because it's not just about CNA or SEIU, or Rose Ann DeMoro or Andy Stern. It's about the future direction and vitality of the American labor movement--a movement that has the ability to blaze a path to an economy and a society that works for everyone--not just the lucky 12%...or 11%or 10%or 9%...
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