July 30th, 2010
Twin Cities nurses who crossed their union’s picket line during a mass walkout June 10 say they were harassed by the union after the fact through letters calling them to a disciplinary hearing.
The nurses, all from Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, say they resigned from the union before the 24-hour walkout in order to work behind the picket lines. Nonetheless, they received letters from the Minnesota Nurses Association saying they may be subject to reprimand, censure or expulsion.
The nurses filed a complaint against the MNA late Wednesday with the National Labor Relations Board. In the past, it’s been the MNA that’s filed a flurry of federal complaints against the nurses’ employers.
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July 10th, 2010
Many nurses who cast their votes Tuesday said they were relieved and pleased that they were able to preserve their health care, pensions and salaries. But some said they could not in good conscience vote for a deal that failed to provide the staffing ratios they claimed on lawn signs and at rallies were critical to patient safety.
“It’s embarrassing for me,” said one nurse who said she voted no, but declined to give her name. “That’s what I was picketing for.”
Others said the months of public bashing might have inflicted lasting damage on the relationship between nurses and their employers. Vicky Michaels, an operating room nurse at United Hospital in St. Paul, said she voted for the contract, but directed her frustration at hospital administrators, who she said “make millions and get huge pay raises.” The only bonus she’s received was for saving the life of a patient by doing CPR. It was a cookie, she said, laughing, for saving a life.
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May 21st, 2010
In what can only be described as a stunning turn of events, registered nurses at the University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC) have voted overwhelmingly to oust the Illinois Nurses Association in favor of representation by National Nurses United (a group headed by the California Nurses Association).
In the three choice election which culminated on May 20th, nurses voted as follows: 627 voted in favor of NNU; 335 voted in favor of INA; and, 22 voted in favor of no union. There were 6 challenged ballots. Only 79% of the 1,261 nurses eligible to vote actually cast ballots in the election.
As the results above indicate, the NNU gained almost twice as much support as the INA, which has represented UCMC nurses for over three decades.
December 14, 2009
The day that she became the first executive director of the nation’s largest nurse union, Rose Ann DeMoro took to the microphone at the group’s inaugural rally and pointed to a nearby statue of a famed Native American historical figure.
“This is the first group of people who were told that labor-management partnerships would work for them,” DeMoro declared to the enthusiastic union crowd assembled with protest signs outside the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association, according to her own recounting of the anecdote afterward.
The comment equated American pioneers known for their brutality and broken promises with modern hospital administrators who have increasingly been using written agreements between labor and management to quiet the discontent of the unionization process. It was the kind of DeMoro-esque comment that thrills many union nurses and sends shivers of emotion through healthcare executives.
“The people who have their hands on the levers of power here don’t have ideas that we would consider mainstream ideas,” said management labor consultant Chris Cimino, president and CEO of Chessboard Consulting. “There is some very radical ideology that is in charge of driving the NNU.”
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December 8, 2009
Yesterday, Rose Ann De Moro, Executive Director of the California Nurses Association, pulled off a stunning victory that has been nearly 15 years in the making. With the merger of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, Massachusetts Nurses Association and United American Nurses – De Moro’s dream of building a national union for registered nurses is finally complete (with the formation of National Nurses United or NNU). Read More
