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Fall 2000

UAN Launches National Visibility Campaign on RN Staffing Crisis

The nationwide RN staffing crisis is beginning to make news - and there's more to come. UAN is launching a year-long campaign to tell the media, the public and legislators about the crisis and build support to end it. Key campaign components are:

UAN leaders met in Washington last month to lay out the components of the visibility campaign. Next step: set the target date for a national mobilization. Look for the latest visibility campaign developments on the UAN website: www.UANnurse.org

UAN Supports WHC Nurses on Strike -

UAN leaders joined staff nurses from the District of Columbia Nurses Association at the Washington Hospital Center in their effort to gain better wages and working conditions. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney also walked the picket line.

Mobilization - Health Care Staffing Crisis Action Slated for May, 2001

Patients are at risk here every day because there aren't enough Registered Nurses in our hospital!

Here's what must be done to make our hospital safe for patients.

Those are the two messages the public and policy makers must hear and see through Health Care Staffing Crisis Action Day.

Backing up the messages with local facts will take hard work by CMAs and local leaders, but there is a huge potential payoff in public awareness and support and visibility for UAN as the top union of nurses fighting for quality patient care.

UAN will provide materials and support for CMAs and promote the events with national media. RNs everywhere are outraged about the lack of quality of patient care -patients will be too, when they hear the truth about the perils they face
in their hospitals.

Policy makers at both state and national levels are more likely to listen and act when the problem is in their own backyard.

"I wake up every day and hope I don't kill someone today." So said Kathy loninger, RN, University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center, in a Chicago Tribune article on the staffing shortage: "Every day I pray: God protect me. Let me make it out of here with my patients alive." UAN Presses AFL-CIO for Affiliation Decision UAN Chair Cheryl Johnson and Director Susan Bianchi-Sand continue to meet with AFL-CIO leaders, urging prompt action on an affiliation agreement.

Make Your Voice Count

A national ANA internet survey of RNs on staffing will soon be posted on www.ana.org. Results are sure to get public attention when they're released to the news media.

This will be a great start for UAN's national visibility campaign. Get on line and respond AND urge every staff nurse to do the same. It's our opportunity to make our voices heard on the health care staffing crisis.

Illinois Nurses Win Respect and Money

Awage package adding 21% over three years, mandatory overtime language, and improvements in the prepaid tuition program won by Illinois RC23 nurses in late August "add up to one hell of a con-tract," said RC23 Chairperson Mildred Taylor in thanking RN's for their support.

RNs won management respect, said Taylor. Earlier, the union earned the respect of AFSCME and the IBT, when RNs chose ANA in a three-choice repre-sentation fight and the new contract sets salaries 3% over what AFSCME bargained.

Big Decisions: Maine and Mass Disaffiliation Votes

Votes by Maine nurses on October 14 and Massachusetts nurses on November 9 will decide whether they drop or maintain ANA affiliation -BIG decisions for nurses in those two states and for UAN nurses everywhere. RNs committed to action and change are vital to the UAN and UAN power is vital to creating change

World-Class Staff Nurses

Just a week or so separated the International Council on Nursing Labor Forum in Kobe, Japan and a staff nurse picket line outside the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC last month. I was proud to represent the UAN in both settings, and struck by the similarity of problems for staff nurses everywhere .

In Japan, staff nurses met from many dif-ferent countries, and different kinds of health care systems - some with unions and contracts, some not - and spoke of a common concern: not enough skilled, experienced nurses to provide quality patient care. Even the reasons were simi-lar - cost-cutting by management, new nurses leaving the profession after a few years, fewer people choosing nursing as a career and an aging work-force. And …no surprise…mandatory overtime.

There are no quick fixes for health care system problems, either at home or abroad. We must apply bargaining power and generate public pressure - just like the nurses are doing at the Washington Hospital Center

FastFacts

UAN Leaders Net Ready

A survey of delegates at the first National Labor Assembly high-lights the importance of timely communication and widespread use of e-mail and the internet.

DATES

Oct 17-18 UAN Exec Council
DC

Dec. 6-7 Program Directors
Chicago

Dec. 15 HOD Bylaw Deadline

CONTRACT

VHA National Contract: More Leverage for Nurses

Pursuing the resolution adopted by the UAN Labor Assembly for a national bargaining agreement with the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), local bargaining chairs will meet in Washington, DC on October 19, when they'll develop a mecha-nism for national bargaining of a master contract to undergird local bargaining. Twelve CMAs have
collective bargaining contracts with VA Hospitals… a national contract adds UAN power and influence. A national contract will be negotiated this year.

Editorial

UAN Activist
600 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington DC 20024
Phone: 202.651.7000
Fax: 202.651.7001
Web: www.UANnurse.org
© 2000 United American Nurses.
All rights reserved.

© 2002 United American Nurses, AFL-CIO. All rights reserved.