Nurses Unions to Combine

[Lavinia]

Nurses unions to combine
George Raine, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, February 19, 2009

"The California Nurses Association, a union representing 75,000 registered nurses in five states, said Wednesday it is joining with two other nurses unions to create a 150,000-member advocacy association.

The move is more of an amalgamation than a merger, because the three unions will maintain their identities, but the new group is intended to give union-represented nurses a national voice and more organizing strength, said Debra Berger, president of the California Nurses Association based in Oakland.

The group will be called the United American Nurses-National Nurses Organizing Committee and is affiliated with the AFL-CIO.

The other unions in the group are the United American Nurses, based in Silver Spring, Md., with members in 12 states, and the Massachusetts Nurses Association, based in Canton, Mass., which has members in its home state and is conducting organizing campaigns in New Hampshire and Connecticut. The California Nurses Association also has members in Texas, Nevada, Maine and Pennsylvania.

The new association will provide nationwide coordination in the campaign for single-payer health care, as the proposal is taken up in Congress, said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association. "These are tremendous allies," she said of the two other unions representing registered nurses.

The association will seek to "organize all nonunion direct care RNs," and provide a national voice for nurses' rights, safe nursing practices including RN-to-patient ratios, and nurses' health care plans, the three unions said. The group also intends to create a national pension plan for union RNs."

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The organizational landscape in nursing has undergone some dramatic shifts over the past two years.

Eight state nurses associations- New York, Washington, Oregon, Ohio, New Jersey, Montana, Missouri, and Indiana- left the UAN (and the AFL-CIO by default) in December 2007. Then the UAN and ANA severed their relationship in July of that year. Subsequently several UAN states- Michigan, Minnesota, DC and Hawaii- have left the ANA (and ANA has filed lawsuits surrounding this), and union members in Alaska and Illinois now opt into ANA if they want to belong.

The eight states that disaffiliated from the UAN have formed their own "national union"- the National Federation of Nurses (NFN), although why this has not been widely publicized as yet remains a mystery.

This new structure, UAN-NNOC, brings together organizations that had been previously united under the ANA. The UAN-NNOC unions are strong advocates of staffing ratios, which are opposed by the ANA and all the states of the NFN with the exception of New York.

While the details have not yet been worked out, the UAN-NNOC looks to be a promising change agent in advocating for staff nurses nationally and organizing those that seek union representation. It looks to be close to passing ANA in terms of membership numbers which could lead to an upset of ANA's standing.

[cynthia]

In the article this UAN-NNOC says:

"The group also intends to create a national pension plan for union RNs."

It seems bad timing to leave the UAN now that we have a pension "meltdown"--

Does anyone know why we left and who decided this?

[rnforever]

Who decided to leave the UAN and PLEASE TELL ME WHY THE LEADER OF this new group we've been "united" with calls herself a "CEO" What in heaven's name is happening and who the hell are these people who decided to leave the UAN and go with this "FEDERATION"

[asana]

Hello, I am new and now that i have looked through I dont see anymore information on the NFN and am curious. they have a site with one page?

What is the process of withdrawing from nysna if there is one, and is this coalition, which is a great idea meeting with the powers that be?

I am also not understanding why there is no discussion going on here. Maybe no one knows? I tripped on it by accident trying to get NFN info. Thanks Asana

[Tania]

Welcome to the site Asana. The NFN is funded by dues from the member states. You can look at their website, which we assume is funded by nurses' dues money. Our site, on the other hand, exists solely through volunteer labor.
In NY, there was no vote of the membership to create or join NFN. Members had no say whether or not their money would be used to finance it. By virtue of its size, NY nurses provide the majority of its funding.
There was no assembly of delegates to create, debate or vote on its constitution. The members of its leadership body were appointed by a tiny group--not elected by the members of our state.
It is unclear what it actually does at this point aside from meet. Their next meeting, next week, is in Orlando (Florida is not a member state however so why members' dues money is being used to finance a meeting in this vacation area is a reasonable question).

[johnnymidwest]

This is all pretty ridiculous. Leadership not responsible to the members? Union leader calling herself a CEO? This stuff shouldn't fly.

I've also checked out the NFN website, and there is a suspicious lack of information there.

A question: why are the NFN states' nursing associations against staffing ratios? That doesn't make sense to me.

[Lavinia]

With the exception of NY, the NFN states have advocated for the "ANA" model of staffing legislation.

That model does not make much sense to many staff nurses either- but the state hospital associations and nurse executive organizations prefer this model over ratios. Most of the NFN states partnered with those groups when they did their staffing legislation!

IMO- to be effective you need a floor- minimum numbers- established by law. Then your staffing committees can come up with an effecive plan to "staff up" as needed according to acuity, level of ability, etc.