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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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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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.

The 73-member International Executive Board (IEB) of the Service Employees International Union met in Washington D.C. today to elect Executive Vice President Mary Kay Henry the 10th president of the nation’s fastest-growing union.

“This moment marks a renewed commitment to our union’s core mission: to improve the lives of all workers who are struggling to make ends meet in this economy,” Henry said.  ”Working people are facing hardships we haven’t seen in generations, and we believe SEIU can be an even more effective vehicle for change to help them improve their lives and the lives of the people they serve.

“We will get this done by renewing our commitment to organizing, connecting our members at the grassroots level to our political strength and restoring our relationships throughout the American labor movement – because just like I learned as a little girl in a family of twelve, we can’t go it alone. Everything is better when you can organize a group and make a decision to stand and act on behalf of all workers in this country.”

Henry is noted for working side-by-side with SEIU members – meeting with them at 3 a.m. on night shifts in hospitals, walking picket lines, leading members in contract bargaining, and helping them discover the strength they have when they stand together.

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Andy Stern, the nation’s most politically influential union president, will announce plans this week to resign, several union officials said, in a move that surprised and shook organized labor and Democratic political circles.

His many conservative detractors hailed the departure of Mr. Stern, who as president of the Service Employees International Union has been labor’s most electrifying — and polarizing — leader.

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President Obama’s decision on Saturday to make 15 recess appointments, most notably appointing Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board, has sparked a debate about partisan politics as well as the best ways to bolster the American workforce.

 Becker’s nomination to the NLRB was opposed by Republicans, as well as a couple of Democrats, who argue he will bring bias in favor of labor unions to the position. Becker currently serves as a lawyer for the labor organizations SEIU and AFL-CIO and has spoken favorably of the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would make it easier for workers to unionize.

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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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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).

However, while the merger engineered by De Moro places her firmly in control of the new entity – NNU – big questions remain.  Last week, the President of the United American Nurses (Anne Converso) filed a legal action seeking to block the merger with a temporary restraining order (TRO).  Joining Converso was a nurse from the Illinois Nurses Association.  In the action, the plaintiffs maintained that the UAN would be “dissolved” if the merger was allowed to go forward. On Friday of last week, Judge Blanche Manning, US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, ruled against imposing a TRO.  This development cleared the way for the NNU Convention to proceed.

But what happens now?  The fundamental problem that remains for the newly minted National Nurses United is the lingering question that has kept these groups (i.e. CNA and UAN) apart for years…ideology!  The fact remains that some of the former UAN State Nursing Associations (i.e. Illinois Nurses Association,  Iowa Nurses Association, Colorado Nurses Association, etc.), have serious ideological differences with De Moro’s CNA. 

On issues like the Magnet Process, the value of Shared Governance, the value of Health Information Technology, and the need for a single payer healthcare system – the more moderate former UAN members (like Illinois) would likely have nothing in common with the hard-left perspective of the folks in California, Michigan, or Massachusetts.  This means that yesterday’s vote is likely not the last word on the “Super Union” issue.  As groups like the Illinois Nurses Association come under the thumb of De Moro’s NNU, they will have a decision to make – to stay or go.  However, even if some of the more moderate state nursing associations do decide to go it alone or join up with the National Federation of Nurses (a more moderate alternative to De Moro’s NNU), De Moro’s success will be none-the-less stellar. 

De Moro’s influence on the entire field of unions representing nurses has been undeniable.  Now, with the creation of the NNU, De Moro has her hands firmly on the controls of the largest, and arguably the most militant, nurse advocacy group in the U.S.

On November 23^rd, the current President of the United American Nurses (Ann Converso) and Joan Craft, (a VP of UAN and a representative for the Illinois Nurses Association), filed an action in the Northern District of Illinois seeking an injunction to prevent the impending merger of the National Nurses Organizing Committee, the Massachusetts Nurses Association and the United American Nurses into a “Super Union” – the National Nurses United or NNU.

In their legal action, the plaintiffs contend that, “at first, UAN Staff, its General Counsel and certain merger proponents repeatedly characterized the transaction as a mere ‘affiliation’.”  They go on to explain that,  “Plaintiffs Converso, Craft and Executive Council member Kathleen Gettys, having had a more deliberate opportunity to review the provisions of the Merger Agreement, came to the firm conclusion that it was not an ‘Affiliation’ Agreement as it benignly had been captioned in the Merger Agreement and so described by pro-merger proponents.” 

In their legal action, the plaintiffs are basically arguing that the net effect of the current merger of the three entities (NNOC, MNA and UAN) will effectively constitute the “dissolution” of the UAN, as it is “merged” into the larger organization (NNU).   The plaintiffs are arguing that because the net effect of the merger will be “the dissolution of the UAN” the provisions in the UAN Constitution regarding “Dissolution” must be followed.

Formation of the largest nurses’ union and professional association in U.S. history took another major step forward Monday with a unanimous endorsement of the affiliation agreement vote by delegates representing 80 percent of the members of the United American Nurses (UAN). Even as a number of state affiliates inexplicably failed to attend the meeting, the national delegate assembly of the UAN moved forward to create the 150,000 member RN “Super Union.”

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