(Editor’s Note: As disaffection from the compromised American Nurses
Association deepens in Massachusetts and flares up around the country, nurses
are finding their voice and speaking out for themselves and their patients.
Space permits only a tiny sampling of this outcry, but future issues of
Seachange Bulletin will carry more direct testimony as Massachusetts moves
toward independence and new opportunities to deal with the crisis in nursing
and in health care. --Sandy Eaton, RN, Quincy, Massachusetts)

Maine Nurses Association Chides ANA for Breaking Promise
To Fix UAN Bylaw to Prevent Management Domination

The Maine State Nurses Association has sent a strongly-worded letter to the
leadership of the American Nurses Association, chiding them for failing to
honor a promise made to the MSNA membership last Fall. In a plea to Maine
nurses not to disaffiliate at a meeting held on the issue last Fall, the ANA
promised the membership that they would fix the flawed structure of the ANA’s
national union to make it safe for states like Maine, Massachusetts and
Hawaii to belong. The ANA has broken that promise, and instead of fixing the
problem, they have gone forward and approved bylaws that make it impossible
for these states to safely belong to the ANA Federation.

For both Maine and Massachusetts, the key area of concern behind efforts to
disaffiliate from the ANA is the danger presented by the ANA’s plan to force
the state nurses associations into joining ANA’s national union, the United
American Nurses (UAN) in June. Because of how the UAN is structured (it is
overseen by the ANA Board which is partly compromised of managers and
supervisors), MNA Attorney Alan McDonald has advised the MNA that belonging
to the UAN places MNA bargaining units and every MNA-unionized nurses’
contract in jeopardy.

Because of this flaw, both from a legal and commonsense perspective, the MNA
Labor Program has voted unanimously to not belong to the UAN. The Hawaii
Nurses Association and the Maine State Nurses Association have also refused
to join the UAN because they too oppose its current structure. If ANA has its
way in June, these states will be forced into joining the UAN.

The Board of Directors of the Maine State Nurses Association sent a letter on
Feb. 11th addressed to the Executive Directors and Presidents of both the ANA
and the UAN. The letter registers the MSNA’s disappointment with ANA actions,
and seeks an explanation for the ANA’s failure to honor its promise. Below
are excerpts from the letter.

It was MSNA’s understanding, that insulation would be a number one priority
for ANA. ANA’s leadership expressed a commitment to the MSNA membership
concerns during MSNA’s Convention in October 2000; guaranteeing that ANA
would submit by-law changes that would assure insulation "similar to Maine."
However upon reviewing the UAN by-law changes submitted to the ANA, the
promises made did not live up to their guarantee. We, the MSNA Board of
Directors, are very disappointed.

MSNA is aware of the influence a Board of Directors has on its membership. It
is apparent that the UAN/ANA proposed by-laws will succeed over MSNA’s due to
the fact it has ANA Board and ANA/UAN support.

ANA’s proposed by-law changes do not appropriately insulate the UAN from the
ANA Executive Director and Board of Directors influence and therefore are
unacceptable to MSNA. MSNA feels that ANA leadership has not honored its
commitment to MSNA as promised in October 2000.

We are requesting a response to your agreement on assuring "insulation" that
you have not lived up to. We are also waiting for the UAN’s written response
to the E& GW Council’s question: If the ANA proposed bylaw changes are passed
and MSNA is forced into membership in the UAN (which Maine is currently not a
member of) would it in fact mean that MSNA would be forced into an
affiliation with another union if the UAN/ANA chose to affiliate with another
union.

"We support the leadership of the Maine State Nurses Association in
attempting to hold the ANA accountable for their actions and their
decisions," said Julie Pinkham, MNA Executive Director. "Their failure to
address this problem makes it clear that we cannot continue to belong to an
organization that willfully places the majority of its members at risk. There
is a reason they won’t make the changes Maine and Massachusetts have
requested; the reason is they don’t want to form a strong union of registered
nurses free of the control and manipulation of managers and administrators.
They won’t do this because to do so would force the ANA to truly take stands
against the power structure of the health care industry. They refuse to do
so, because many of the leaders of the ANA are in fact, representatives of
the industry, the very managers and administrators who have created the
crisis nurses now face."

The MNA is holding a special meeting to vote on disaffiliation from the ANA
on March 24, 2001 at Mechanics Hall in Worcester. The meeting begins at 1
p.m. The MNA Board, along with the Cabinet for Labor Relations, the Congress
on Health & Safety, the Boards of MNA Districts 2 and 3, as well as nearly
every chair of the MNA’s 85 local bargaining units are supporting
disaffiliation.

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

February 11, 2001
The American Nurse
taneditor@ana.org

Dear Editor,

After reading The American Nurse, I am left feeling embarrassed that such
patronizing and inflammatory "reporting" can be found in any nursing
publication. The American Nurse sounds as if it's target audience is
elementary school children, not a population of mostly 40 something women.
Nursing has always suffered from the misogynist's view that we are all
undereducated, emotional, hormone driven, 'caring' females who cannot
actually think. The American Nurse columns discussing the situation in
Massachusetts could be used to support that notion.

Apparently The American Nurse is churning out tabloid "journalism" to their
readers to reinforce ANA's transparent agenda, which appears to clearly be to
marginalize nurses who do not agree with ANA, and generate contempt toward
them. ANA president Mary Foley states that Massachusetts nurses have joined
California nurses who "have been sowing the seeds of 'disunity' among nurses
across the country and leaving their own members adrift ..." It is always
wise to review a little history before making such statements. Over TWENTY
ONE years ago Bea Coleman, a New York State RN, sowed some "disunity seeds"
too when she wrote in a major nursing journal;

"... nurses are disenchanted with the American Nurse's Association. If it was
doing a good job ... which it isn't ... nurses would not be turning to other
'unions' for representation."

Clearly disenchantment with the American Nurses Association has spanned
decades and involves more than California and Massachusetts nurses. How many
RN's belong to ANA? Well, out of 2.6 million RN's - approximately 2.4 million
do not!

References to the MNA board decisions on December 1st were called "unbecoming
to nurses." Mary Foley recently wrote to all Massachusetts nurses reminding
us, "this is not how nurses conduct themselves across the country." This
sounds as if we are being ordered back to our roots in Victorian nursing when
only white "ladies" were accepted into the profession, and into the ANA.
Would Mary Foley consider the actions of visionaries like Susan B. Anthony,
Elizabeth Stanton, Gloria Steinham, Betty Friedan, and Rosa Parks unbecoming
and unlady like "conduct" too?

Peg Barry's hysterical and breathless ranting about hundreds of helpless
adults not being "allowed" to hear from ANA; being "told we should not meet
or speak directly with ANA"; and being "blocked" from access to ANA (combined
with the bespectacled, grand motherly photo added by The American Nurse)
leaves an indelible image of victimization of the elderly. Over 1000 nurses
were present on November 9th who could truthfully say this is pure bunk.

As much as it pains me to say this, I was appalled too at Karen Daley's
column. It was a stilted, and rather pious, column previously printed in an
MNA district newsletter which also displayed Karen's photo. However this time
in The American Nurse, a very subtle change was added to the column.
Reference to Karen's needle stick injury had been added.

As an I.V. infusion nurse who works with HIV infected individuals the Boston
community, I know all too well the tragedy that AIDS is. All of my patients
have contracted HIV via various routes. All are tragic stories which also
evoke fear and compassion. Karen's very personal story of contracting HIV in
her work as a nurse has torn at my heart, and the hearts of every nurse in
this country who empathize with her since she went public. However, Karen's
loyal support of ANA and the issues in Massachusetts do not involve her HIV
status. Nor should they.

This very subtle alteration in The American Nurse version of the column,
appears a gratuitous attempt by ANA to exploit Karen's very personal tragedy
and shamelessly garner sympathy from your readers to support ANA's position.
It is difficult for me to believe otherwise, as The American Nurse reaches a
much larger audience than an MNA district newsletter. And it is precisely
the garnered sympathy for Karen which helped move the needle stick
legislation into law. No doubt it can be strategically used again as a
cunning means to influence the emotions of nurses across the nation in order
to meet ANA's goal to prevent another state disaffiliation.

For any individual or professional healthcare organization to exploit and
capitalize on a personal tragic story to advance it's own political self
interest defies decency. As registered nurses, and as a profession of
healthcare providers, I feel we are all diminished by your publication.

Marie Waters RN
Somerville, Massachusetts

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

Smearing Nurses

"We are living in a time and a society where language is used to cover up
more than it is to reveal."- Professor David Gil, Brandeis University.

Smear campaigns. Fear campaigns. They are an ugly reflection of contemporary
American culture. Often they are used in political power struggles where the
battle cannot be won with the truth. The goal is to confuse people and
distract them from the factual information or rational debate which would
threaten those whose goal is to win at all costs. So the smear campaign is
launched; it's mission is to evoke outrage, anger, indignation, and fear in
those uninformed on the real issues at hand. It is a well known tactic among
those vying for power. Smear/fear campaigns are ugly, and are designed to
evoke such visceral emotional responses (e.g., sympathy) so that people find
it more difficult to engage their ability to reason.

Nurses, like most people, are vulnerable to the tactics of a misinformation
campaign. Clinical nursing is exhausting and nurses often admit it is
impossible to keep up with the political issues which impact their
profession. And nursing's written history is a history of labor exploitation
and domination. Yet, registered nurses have remained the backbone of the
multibillion dollar American healthcare industry for over 100 years. Richard
U. Miller, Ph.D. may have said it best when he summarized this observation of
nursing:

"Social beliefs that women should be submissive, supportive, and obedient are
intertwined with the norms of the profession, which emphasize selfless
devotion to duty, first priority to patients, and rejection of economic gain
over professional commitment."

That submissiveness, supportiveness and obedience are still viewed as the
"norms of the profession" of nursing are painfully evident even today.
Hospital executive and ANA president Mary Foley, and UAN chair Cheryl
Johnson, recently crafted a letter which attacked the MNA Board of Directors
stating: "this is not the way nurses conduct themselves across the country."
One can hardly imagine such an admonishment being sent out to members of the
medical, engineering, or legal professions. If it were not a commonly held
belief that the majority of working nurses are so uninformed and unable to
employ critical thinking and reasoning, Mary Foley would never have stooped
so low. Appealing to the soft and gooey heart of nurses to manipulate them
is successful ... and hospital executives know that.

Employing smoke screen tactics and fear mongering, Mary Foley refers to the
MNA board saying, "this is a threat from within. A small but vocal minority
wants to break apart the nursing community and sow discord and division ..."
Has she not read the numerous valid reasons MNA has clearly articulated at
eleven town meetings and which have been published in the Mass Nurse, the
Advocate, on the MNA web site, as well as the Boston Globe? Can any
reasonable person entertain the idea that the MNA board of directors (all of
whom are over 40 years old) and the 670+ nurses who voted to leave ANA have
nothing better to do with our lives than sit around and plot the destruction
of nursing? They go on, "If some had their way, we would have battle after
battle within the state nurses associations and within ANA." If who had their
way? I for one, certainly do not have the desire or the energy for "battle
after battle" in nursing. Enough already!

That letter was only one of the many vile, vicious and blatantly untrue crea
tions manufactured and published recently by the ANA, and a group of ANA
supporters, in an attempt to demonize the issue and distract from the intense
national scrutiny ANA is now under for an embarrassing and humiliating track
record. And to lead uninformed nurses to believe something sinister is afoot.

When nurses find themselves unable to think rationally, when they are
paralyzed by anger, outrage, or sympathy after reading sensationalized
propaganda filled with emotionally loaded language, it would be wise to start
looking for what or whom is threatened. When the issue at hand calls for a
critical examination of the issues, but you’re only reading vicious attacks
and hearing sentimental pleas for unquestioning "unity" (submissive
obedience) and "professionalism" (supportiveness) it's time to start asking
questions and seeking answers.

Did the ANA board of directors not also just replace their executive
director, David Hennage? Why is ANA now attacking the MNA board of directors
for exercising their legally authorized judgment to do the same? Why are
frivolous law suites being generated against the current MNA board of
directors rather than the Pro-ANA board members who resigned and walked out
of MNA abandoning their responsibility, and violating their legal obligation
to the MNA members who voted them into office? Why all the emotionally
loaded propaganda? ANA has assured a place for any MNA member who wants to
stay with ANA. Why does ANA not simply honor their state member and allow us
to leave peacefully, or just publish a list of what they have accomplished
for nurses across America? Why does ANA not simply inform MNA members what
they have received from ANA for the $12 million paid out over the last decade
while healthcare and nursing crashed around our ankles?

Why? Because this is a smear campaign directed at Massachusetts - who has a
record as one of the most successful state nursing organizations in the
country. One that will be recorded in nursing history. Tragically, it is a
smear campaign launched by the management dominated American Nurses
Association because we will not be "submissive," "supportive," and "obedient"
to their direction. Launched because MNA nurses are choosing autonomy and the
desire to free ourselves from paternal oversight in determining our future.
Because if Massachusetts leaves (and joins the other 2 million RN's who do
not belong to the American Nurses Association) ANA will lose a precious $1.2
million annually. But greater yet, we will prove once again, like California,
that nurses can indeed be autonomous professionals. And, unfortunately, "This
is not the way nurses conduct themsel