Modern Healthcare: Unified yes; united, no
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.”