School for Nurse Activists and Patient Advocates

September 17 - 20, 2000
Claremont Resort & Spa
41 Tunnel Road
Oakland, California

Sponsored by the California Nurses Association

Co-sponsored by:

Massachusetts Nurses Association Labor Program
Minnesota Nurses Association
Canadian Federation of Nurses Union

School's purpose:

Nurses throughout the U.S. and Canada are gathering together in this
breathtaking environment to discuss the future of our profession, the future
of healthcare delivery, and strategies to take on the healthcare chains. We
will share stories of our struggles as well as relax and recharge our
batteries. We will create an international forum to discuss, analyze, and
strategize ways to:

1. Resist corporate dominance of healthcare
2. Connect with union nurse's struggles for patient rights
3. Implement safe staffing ratios (AB394) in California & achieve safe
staffing elsewhere
4. Integrate current campaign successes with your particular experience
including learning how nurses are beating back corporate take over of the
healthcare industry throughout the U.S. and Canada
5. Build viable coalitions with nurses nationally and internationally in
order to have the necessary power to create universal access to healthcare
6. Build a national and international movement led by nurses

Learning Environment:

* Focus on Nurse's experience
* Small group discussion
* Practical application
* Celebration of our past success
* Graduation ceremonies with certificates of completion awarded to graduates

Subjects we will cover:

* The Political Economy of Corporate Dominated Healthcare
* Labor history of Nurses
* Health & Safety: injury prevention in a Practice Setting, A case study
presented by the Minnesota nurses
* Patient Rights & Advocacy: Legislative, Regulatory, and Workplace
* The professional definition of staff nurse from the perspective of staff
nurses
* Organizing to build New Leadership
* The efforts by Nurses to create publicly funded Universal Healthcare
* Getting the message Out: Public Speaking and Media Relations

For more information, contact Helen Lee, Education Director, (510) 273-2284
or e-mail her hlee@calnurses.org.

---------------------------------------------

Editorial: Nurses' union would be good medicine to all

The (Delaware County, Pennsylvania) Daily Times, May 28, 2000

And so it has come to pass. Registered nurses in Pennsylvania are mad as hell
and they're not going to take it anymore. Last Wednesday 55 delegates
representing 6,000 nurses at 17 hospitals voted to disaffiliate from the
Pennsylvania State Education Association Health Care Division and start a
union of their own.

The reason?

The PSEA Health Care Division is essentially a teachers' union. Nurses should
be represented by nurses. The newly formed Pennsylvania Association of Staff
Nurses and Allied Professionals is headed by one of Delaware County's own.
Teri Evans of Media, an emergency room nurse at Crozer-Chester Medical
Center, Upland, where she has worked for 26 years, is the president of the
statewide union. Her rank and file includes 650 registered nurses at Crozer
and more than 400 registered nurses at Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital, Darby.

They were inspired to stand on their own, said Evans, by the California
Nurses Association, a union that is rallying nurses from across the nation to
found not only their own unions, but to foster a health care reform movement.

The California union's most stunning achievement was successfully lobbying
for the enactment of a state law that limits five patients per nurse per
shift.

One Delaware County nurse said it is not unusual for her to be saddled with
as many as 12 patients per shift, making it impossible to give all of them
the care they deserve.

In short, reduced patient load translates to not only a lighter burden for
nurses, but better care for patients. And, it is only the beginning of
reforms nurses would like to foster that would benefit both them and their
patients.

Another major concern among nurses nationwide is the practice of pooling at
hospitals in which a maternity nurse might be pulled from her usual duties to
tend to a medical-surgical unit, or a medical-surgical nurse might suddenly
be sent to an oncology unit to care for cancer patients because there are
simply not enough nurses to go around.

Again, patient care is adversely affected. Patients are in different units
because they have different needs and nurses unfamiliar with them cannot give
optimal care.

One of the greatest challenges nurses and every American faces is dealing
with the corporations that now run hospitals and health care in general.

Health care has become big business and decisions, including those about
hospital staffing, are driven by the bottom line. Consequently, nurses see
duties that are normally part of their jobs being assigned to less costly --
and less skilled -- aides.

While salaries and benefits will surely be priorities for the Pennsylvania
Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals as they are for any
bargaining unit, it is encouraging that the new union officials are embracing
the issue of quality patient care. We wish them luck in helping to foster an
even more far-reaching movement of health care reform.


©The Daily Times 2000

------------------------------------------------

POSSIBLE HOSPITAL STRIKES AVERTED

University of California Nurses Reach Contract Settlement

University of California registered nurses represented by the California
Nurses Association (CNA) reached a landmark contract agreement in the early
morning hours of May 25. The tentative agreement will become effective upon
ratification by the approximately 7,500 UC nurses around the state.

The two-year agreement represents major breakthroughs for nurses and their
patients. Dawn Love, UC Davis registered nurse and chair of the CNA Statewide
Bargaining Council, called the new tentative contract "a ground-breaking
achievement."

"We believe that this contract moves UC nurses light years ahead in areas of
quality of patient care, rights for nurses on the job, and wage issues
necessary to allow UC to recruit and retain the highest quality nurses," said
Love.

The proposed contract averts at least three pending strikes. Nurses at the
medical centers at UC San Francisco, UC Davis, and UC Irvine have voted in
recent days to authorize strike action if necessary to win a fair contract,
the first time ever that UC nurses have taken such action.

Among the highlights of the new agreement:

.Eliminating a host of injustices for UC San Francisco nurses created by the
University's refusal to compensate for the losses RNs suffered due to the
disastrous failed merger with Stanford. The agreement provides major
increases in pay, benefits, and rights for UCSF nurses.

.Extending contract rights against unjust discipline to hundreds of per diem
nurses, who had historically been excluded from contractual protections.

.Strengthened language supporting safe staffing conditions for patients, and
allowing nurses to use grievance procedures in cases of unsafe staffing or
"floating."

.New limits on mandatory overtime and on-call, as well as increased pay for
"call-in" hours.

.Dramatically expanded rights for nurse representation at the hospitals.

.Improved health and safety protections for nurses.

.An end to nurses being disciplined for using sick leave.

.Significant wage increases.

The CNA nurse negotiating team has announced their intention to recommend
ratification of the contract, said David Johnson, director of the CNA UC
Division. "This proposed contract is a direct result of the organized power
of UC nurses, and is a tribute to their dedication in fighting for higher
standards of care for their patients."

For further information: Carl Bloice, 510-273-2249

-----------------------------------------------

Avis Corporation & the Image of Nurses

Mr. Barry Rand, CEO
AVIS World Headquarters
900 Old Country Road
Garden City, NY 11530

Dear Mr. Rand:

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why an advertiser would deliberately
set out to offend the second largest organized labor force in the country -
nurses. Your advertisement for Avis, that depicts a nurse making serious
errors, then suggesting that she doesn't care, is a crass and insulting
affront to the nursing profession.

The many changes happening in health care today have had negative effects on
the delivery of nursing care. This has resulted in a revolution in nursing.

We remain compassionate, but we are no longer complacent. Nurses today are
willing to fight against systems that once controlled and dominated our
profession. We are also willing to fight against those who would portray us,
or our work in a negative light.

The Internet has allowed us to communicate with each other in ways that were
never before possible. It takes only a few keystrokes to inform and mobilize
large numbers of nurses. We are united, not only in our desire to protect our
patients, but to preserve the integrity of our professional practice.

There are approximately 2,600,000 nurses in the United States. We all drive.
We take vacations, and we rent cars.

Therefore, if you want us to rent Avis cars, I suggest you pull the offensive
ad, and post your apology on the following web sites:

American Nurses Association - http://www.nursingworld.org
Idea Nurse (site for nurse activists) - http://ideanurse.com
Massachusetts Nurses Association - http://www.massnurses.org
California Nurses Association - http://www.calnurse.org

Sincerely,

Teana Gilinson, RN
Nurse Activist

May 29, 2000

----------------------

A. Barry Rand, CEO
AVIS World Headquarters
900 Old Country Road
Garden City, NY 11530

Dear Mr. Rand,

I am writing about your company's advertisement which portrays a nurse as a
disinterested drone as someone who has "just stopped trying." At first I
smiled at the ad and acknowledged that this may indeed be the experience of
many Americans who access what ever Healthcare may be available to them,
assuming of course that they have health insurance.

However, your advertisement left me feeling somewhat offended as well. As a
member of the very active Massachusetts Nurses Association, I know first hand
of the tremendous work and effort on the part of so many registered nurses
around the country who are joining an ever expanding grass roots effort to
defeat profit driven health care and stop the erosion of a noble profession
which continues to "care" for some of the most vulnerable members of American
society, despite all odds. Many registered nurses have left the profession
feeling their hands were tied by "stock market health care" and executives
who honor the bottom line of profit over human dignity and integrity and
quality, cost effective care.

Although the message AVIS was trying to send to consumers in this ad was not
lost, I hope you will suggest to your advertising consultants that they consid
er showing a registered nurse in an emergency room, intensive care unit,
nursing home, or a nurse trudging through urban slums in the rain to get to a
dying patient and her family. They might consider rewriting the slogan, "Ever
get the feeling some people never stop trying?" This might better clarify
AVIS's intended message.

Sincerely,

Barry L. Adams RN, BSN
Boston, Massachusetts