UAN's Activist newsletter—news from UAN's membership and around the nursing and labor communities—is distributed quarterly to all dues-paying members of the UAN.

Spring 2008 issue

Download PDF of Newsletter

Download PDF of PAC Form

Join the Legislative Voice of Staff Nurses

Dear UAN member,

You can’t turn on the news these days without hearing that our nation’s health care system is in crisis—in crisis because too few Americans can access the great care that nurses and other health care workers provide; in crisis because hospital CEOs haven’t improved RN staffing levels and working conditions. As staff nurses, we live this every day.

Meanwhile, nurses and other workers who strive to change their workplaces by organizing a union and bargaining a contract run into a buzz-saw of employer intimidation, and may even find themselves reclassified as a supervisor under the current Bush-appointed National Labor Relations Board.

The good news is, we have an opportunity to help change this picture next November. The UAN RN PAC will raise staff nurses’ voices to every presidential candidate and every legislator in Washington, DC, with real-life solutions to these problems. But we need your help to ensure staff nurses’ voices are heard—please contribute today.

Through UAN’s dedicated staff-nurse-led political action committee, we will make the voice of staff nurses heard through the halls of Congress, down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House. We will carry the perspective of staff nurses who are dedicated to making hospitals safer for patients and for nurses.

We can’t do it without your help. Your contribution today will help us enact safe, minimum RN-to-patient ratios to protect nurses and patients…end the dangerous abuse of mandatory overtime…stop unsafe patient lifting that injures hundreds of thousands of nurses each year...and protect the union rights of every nurse delivering bedside care.

Your support is critical to protect nurses, our profession and our patients. Please donate $100 to become a Founding PAC member/PAC Supporter, $250 to become a PAC Advocate or $500 to become a PAC Champion. Those UAN members who donate $1,000 will become President’s Circle members.

Please download and complete the form with your contribution information and become a part of the growing ranks of staff nurses speaking together to improve health care for nurses, our patients and the country. The UAN RN PAC can accept personal checks by mail or credit card contributions, which can be mailed or faxed to 301-628-5347.

Thank you for helping me to make staff nurses’ voices heard.

In solidarity,
Ann Converso, RN
UAN President

P.S. Please give to the UAN RN PAC by June 30 to maximize the power of your contribution and the visibility of staff nurses as we approach the upcoming elections.

UAN Nurses Tackle Political Action, Safe Staffing and More at NLA

Delegates to the ninth annual National Labor Assembly vowed to mobilize their fellow nurses behind a push for safe RN staffing and kicked off fundraising for UAN’s new political action committee. The UAN RN PAC, created by the 2007 NLA, raised approximately $11,000 in its launch at the two-day event. (See box opposite for more on the UAN RN PAC.)

“UAN nurses renewed their commitment to building a national nurse-led union that is able to take on tough employers and speak with a powerful political voice to the decision-makers who are setting the policies and priorities of our nation,” said UAN President Ann Converso, RN, who was elected at the NLA to her first full term as president.

Delegates passed a resolution to strengthen UAN funding by amending the UAN Constitution to ensure a dues stream directly from UAN Affiliates. They also expanded and affirmed the importance of UAN’s safe staffing campaign to secure safe RN staffing standards at the state and federal levels. (Full text of both resolutions is available at www.uannurse.org/who/resolution.html.)

The NLA audience had the opportunity to hear from six grassroots activists from around the UAN, who for the first time this year received the Cheryl L. Johnson Spotlight Activist Leadership Award. Their inspiring stories of activism served to remind those in attendance of the importance of a strong union.

Bruce Saylor, RN, president of the local bargaining unit at Middlesboro, Ky., Appalachian Regional Health Care which was on strike for three months last year, commented: “Solidarity will always move the giants that we come up against, and that’s exactly what saved us in our battle. Although we were small in number, we showed big to this evil company thanks to the UAN and other unions who saw our cause.”

Nurses also worked to build support for the Employee Free Choice Act, signing cards to join AFL-CIO’s Million Member Mobilization campaign calling on Congress and the next president to pass EFCA and ensure organizing and bargaining rights for all workers.

NLA Election News

Delegates elected Executive Council members to two-year terms running through 2010. They include:

• Ann Converso, President (National Bargaining Council)
• Joan Craft, Vice President (Hawaii)
• Kathleen Gettys, Director (Alaska)
• Linda Hamilton, Director (Minnesota)

Delegates also elected committee members to two-year terms, including:

• Margaret Shanks (District of Columbia), Nominations Committee
• Jeanne Surdo (Minnesota), Hearing Panel
• Bette O’Connor-Rogers (Michigan), Hearing Panel
• Ken O’Leary (North Carolina), Hearing Panel Alternate
• Beverly Thorp (Colorado) also was elected to the Hearing Panel to complete a vacant one-year term.

UAN RN PAC Takes Off
Delegates Recommend Endorsement

UAN RN PAC Board members Carolyn Hietamaki, RN (right), and Linda Hamilton, RN (left), announce nearly $11,000 contributed to the PAC in the first two days of fundraising.

UAN nurses took seriously their mission to make sure staff nurses have a say in the political process. Nearly 100 percent of delegates and all Executive Council members contributed to the UAN RN PAC during its debut at the NLA, a claim few other organizations can make.

“Our nation needs to hear from staff nurses on issues like health care reform and safe patient care,” said UAN RN PAC Chair/Treasurer Mike Nilsson, RN (Fla.-retired). “As front-line health care providers, UAN nurses are well-positioned to be that voice to candidates and voters on these critical national priorities.”

Besides Nilsson, the PAC Board includes RNs Ann Bove (National Bargaining Council-VA), Linda Hamilton (Minn.), Deb Haugen (Mich.), Carolyn Hietamaki (Mich.), Luanne Long (Hawaii) and Marsha Martin (Fla.).

Delegates also held a presidential candidate forum, where nurses had the opportunity to speak on behalf of or about the various presidential candidates, and a straw poll. UAN delegates voted to recommend endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama for president by a count of 31 (Barack Obama) to 17 (Hillary Clinton) to 1 (Ron Paul).

A strong majority of Kentucky nurses at Morgan County-Appalachian Regional Health Care voted to preserve their union, defeating a decertification attempt. The 23 nurses were on strike with nurses at other ARH facilities for three months last fall. “Our union is the most powerful tool we have to enable us to advocate effectively for Morgan County patients and ourselves,” said Bargaining Unit President Paula Fraley, RN …

780 nurses represented by the Illinois Nurses Association at Provena Saint Joseph Medical Center approved a three-year agreement that incorporates provisions of the state’s new staffing law and grants wage increases of 11 percent over the term, including a pay-for-performance standard to begin the second year …

Nurses at Heritage Place in Soldotna, Alaska, voted to join their union sisters and brothers at the Central Peninsula General Hospital bargaining unit, who are represented by AaNA …

Nurses at Buffalo, MN, Hospital elected the Minnesota Nurses Association as their collective bargaining agent under an agreement between the hospital and MNA allowing the election to take place smoothly and swiftly, with a pledge that the hospital would not challenge the bargaining unit eligibility of charge nurses …

The Michigan Nurses Association settled an unfair labor practices charge with Hackley Hospital after the hospital agreed to provide previously requested documents related to the hospital’s merger with another local facility and that in the event of a merger MNA would continue to represent Hackley nurses, with the current contract remaining in effect.

Nurses Mobilize Around Health Care Reform

NLA participants received an update on AFL-CIO activities to mobilize union members around health care, along with a request for help in communicating to the public RNs’ firsthand experiences with the health care system.

“You know and your members know what goes on in health care. We need your stories and your leadership,” said Gerald Shea, AFL-CIO assistant to the president for external affairs, during a health care reform presentation at the NLA.

AFL-CIO is leading a campaign to build union activism promoting quality, affordable health care as we approach the upcoming presidential elections and beyond. One-third of respondents to AFL-CIO’s recent online health care survey reported skipping needed medical care because of cost, and 95 percent said our health care system needs fundamental change or to be rebuilt. (For more on the survey and the campaign, go to www.aflcio.org/issues/healthcare/.

Converso Named to AFL-CIO  Council

UAN President Ann Converso, RN, was named a vice president on the AFL-CIO’s Executive Council, made up of AFL-CIO officers and 45 vice presidents. Continuing the work begun by for•mer UAN President Cheryl Johnson, RN, she is the only nurse on the AFL-CIO Executive Council. AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney commended Converso and the three other union leaders appointed to the Council: “their years of collective experience fighting on be•half of working families will prove invaluable as the AFL-CIO continues to confront the many challenges facing America’s workers.”