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Summer 2001 UAN Delegates Vote to Affiliate with AFL-CIO Delegates to the 2001 National Labor Assembly (NLA) loudly, enthusiastically and unanimously voted to affiliate with the AFL-CIO on June 28, partnering UAN’s 100,000 nurses with the 14 million workers in the House of Labor. “We are sending a message loud and clear that we are ready to roll up our sleeves and get down to the business of solving together the patient care crisis in this country,” UAN President Cheryl Johnson, RN, told a cheering crowd of nurses wearing UAN & AFL-CIO t-shirts. AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney addressed the Labor Assembly and witnessed the historic vote. Sweeney welcomed UAN nurses to the Federation and pledged his support to help solve the patient care crisis nurses face. Sweeney also had some special words for strikebreaking firms like U.S. Nursing Corp., the company used by hospitals in Washington, D.C., Minneapolis-St. Paul and Youngstown: “Together, I want us to go after this rent-a-replacement operation and put a stop to the outrageous use of public tax dollars to pay for scab nurses.” UAN delegates passed a separate NLA resolution to fight and publicize the activities of companies like U.S. Nursing Corp. In a separate ANA bylaw change, HOD representatives voted overwhelmingly to require ANA constituent members not yet part of UAN but who engage in collective bargaining to belong to UAN within four years’ time. 2001 NLA Resolution Roundup • Expose U.S. Nursing Corp. For complete text visit UANNurse.org. Around UAN RNs from four NYSNA hospitals took their fight for safer staffing levels to the streets with informational picketing in June. Nurses from the Montefiore Medical Center, Saint Vincents Hospital of Staten Island, Bayley Seton Hospital and Staten Island University Hospital-North all participated.
INA is going to bat for Des Moines VA nurses who say they face discrimination due to a separation of pay scales policy between nurses working Monday-Friday, 8-5 and those working 24/7. The EEOC has agreed to hear the case. Alaska Alaska Lt. Gov. Fran Ulmer (D) visited Washington, D.C. in July along with AaNA Program Director Dianne O’Connell and Alaska AFL-CIO State Federation of Labor President Mano Frey to meet with labor leaders. Ulmer, a longtime labor supporter, may run for governor next year. Winners Some 700 Youngstown nurses at the Forum Health/Western Reserve Care System are celebrating a July 20 contract ratification after more than 81 days on the picket line. RNs won key provisions eliminating mandatory overtime 18 months after contract ratification.
While nurses at most Twin Cities hospitals reached contract agreements just before their June 1 strike deadline, RNs at Fairview facilities struck for three weeks before settling. Under the new agreements, MNA nurses will play a key role in closing units when staffing resources are tapped.
“I now understand MNA’s slogan, ‘One Strong Voice,’” said Dawn Payne, the Iron County Community Hospital’s staff council chair. RNs at MNA facilities in North Ottawa, Portage and Iron County ratified new contracts granting wage increases, mandatory overtime restrictions and staffing levels.
Three cheers for Mich. Attorney General Jennifer Granholm, who ruled on June 19 that a nurse’s refusal to work overtime is not grounds for discipline. MNA supported a Board of Nursing-approved resolution last year stating that refusal to work overtime does not constitute patient abandonment. UAN to Dol: Stop Breaking Nurses' Backs! UAN nurses testified, protested and rallied in the streets of Chicago July 20 against the U.S. Department of Labor’s unwillingness to adopt a real ergonomics standard. The Labor Department held a series of three forums all heavily stacked with industry leaders to outline the implications of a new ergonomics rule. UAN Vice President Ann Converso, RN, was one of three UAN nurses to testify at the Chicago hearing. “Without a federal mandate and vigorous enforcement of an OSHA ergonomics standard, nurses cannot be assured of the workplace protections they deserve,” said Converso. Illinois Nurses Association (INA) member Roslyn Muhammad, RN, and Alaska Nurses Association member Maggie Flanagan, RN, both described before forum participants the trauma they experienced in being injured on the job. UAN nurses from INA joined workers from across the AFL-CIO in a rally against the “sham” Labor Department hearing and called on the administration to pass a real ergonomics rule now. An ergonomics standard was enacted by the Clinton administration last winter but was quickly revoked by incoming President George W. Bush. UAN RNs Urge Congress to Action Some 100-plus UAN nurses told their Congress members at UAN’s June 26 Lobby Day that national action must be taken to improve nurses’ workplace conditions in hospitals from safe staffing measures to the elimination of mandatory overtime to whistleblower protections.
Dates Sept. 24-28 UAN Labor Institute Las Vegas, Nev. EDitorial Phone: 202.651.7000 © 2001 United American Nurses. |
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