California, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania RNs
Call for New National Nurses Alliance

June 2, 2000

The largest organizations of Registered Nurses in California, Massachusetts
and Pennsylvania have issued a call for a new national alliance of RNs. The
action comes as the largest group of Pennsylvania RNs and allied
professionals have established their own new independent organization, in
alliance with the California Nurses Association.

The 31,000 member CNA's Board of Directors voted unanimously late last month
to endorse a national formation to support independent nurses and other
allied health care labor groups, described by various CNA leaders as a way to
extend the campaign for nurse and patient advocacy from coast to coast.

Last week, the new Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied
Professionals, representing some 6,000 RNs and other employees at hospitals
across Pennsylvania, was created at a convention in Carlisle, Pa. Leaders of
the Massachusetts Nurses Association, CNA, and the United Nurses and Allied
Professionals of Rhode Island, all attended the Carlisle convention of
PASNAP. The Maine Nurses Association also sent greetings and support.

This week, the Cabinet for the labor program of the Massachusetts Nurses
Association, representing 18,500 members, voted in favor of forming alliances
with nurses' organizations that share the same values of patient advocacy,
staff nurse leadership for nurses, and opposition to unsafe health care
restructuring.

"Nurses across the nation face a common crisis of the erosion of patient care
standards at the hands of managed care and corporate medicine," said CNA
President Kay McVay, RN. "Nurses and patients whether in San Francisco,
Philadelphia, or Boston are confronted by the same giant, multi-billion
dollar HMOs and hospital chains. We need a unified, independent voice,
speaking in our own name and acting in our own interest, to protect our
practice and our patients."

McVay cited a recent battle by Massachusetts RNs in a 42-day strike against
the California-based Tenet Healthcare Corporation. The primary issue was
mandatory overtime and other unsafe working conditions. California RNs
offered support to the Massachusetts RNs who won a landmark victory. McVay
called that campaign a model for a future alliance.

At present, there is no single national organization led by staff nurses
acting on their own behalf, noted various CNA Board members during the CNA
discussion. At a time of unsafe staffing, deskilling, and continued
restructuring, "this is about self-empowerment, and the integrity and
preservation of our profession," said John Bressan, RN, a Mercy Healthcare
Sacramento nurse.

Contact: Charles Idelson, 510-273-2246 for CNA.

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Pennsylvania Nurses Create New Collective Bargaining Unit
Bases model on California Nurses Association

By Louis Pilla, www.nurses.com

5/31/2000

Heralded as the start of a new national independent nurses movement, a
contingent of nurses in Pennsylvania have voted to form an independent
organization to represent RNs and other health professionals in the Keystone
State.

The new organization, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied
Professionals (PASNAP), is the successor to the Pennsylvania State Education
Association (PSEA) Health Care Employees Division. Delegates representing
some 6,000 Pennsylvania RNs and other healthcare professionals voted to form
the organization on May 24, according to information from PASNAP.

The nurses chose to split from the PSEA because being independent would allow
the nurses to better address issues, Pearl Kolbosky, RN, vice president of
PASNAP, tells Nurses.com. "We hope that nurses across the state of
Pennsylvania will join in with us," she says.

Most of the members are bedside nurses, with a small percentage of lab and
radiology technicians. The organization also has LPNs. The locals are
distributed across the state, though locals in eastern Pennsylvania are
larger locals with more members, Kolbosky says.

"Our greater vision," Kolbosky says, "is to eventually form a national
organization of bedside nurses to fight the issues of downsizing, deskilling,
the corporatization of hospitals, the HMOs, and insurance companies that put
the restrictions on hospitals."

Previously, Kolbosky, a staff nurse in the critical care unit of Jeannette
Hospital, Jeannette, PA, outside of Pittsburgh, was vice president of the
statewide division of the PSEA Healthcare Division.

Currently, the American Nurses Association has no active collective
bargaining unit in Pennsylvania, says Susan Bianchi-Sand, director of United
American Nurses (UAN), the labor entity for the ANA. Sand notes, though, that
the UAN's highest priority is organizing RNs wherever they are. "We have the
trademark on nurses because of the history here and the knowledge of the
workplace and a very deep network of connections," she tells Nurses.com. "We
will be reaching out wherever there are opportunities." The UAN presently
represents over 100,000 nurses in 27 states.

The Pennsylvania State Nurses Association is constituent member of the ANA
but doesn't offer collective bargaining.

Some 2,000 Pennsylvania nurses and other healthcare professionals are
represented by the non-ANA Pennsylvania Nurses Association (PNA), says
Rosemary Martinjuk, assistant to the director of PNA. Earlier in its history,
the PNA was affiliated with the ANA but is now associated with the Office and
Professional Employees International Union, part of the AFL-CIO.

Connection to California

Of note, PASNAP is in alliance with the California Nurses Association (CNA).
PASNAP says that its leaders contacted CNA earlier this year and asked for
assistance in creating an organization modeled after CNA. The CNA agreed to
help the nurses as a first step, the PASNAP says, in building an independent
national nurses movement for direct care RNs.

PASNAP will use the CNA model to help set up the organization, says Kolbosky.
CNA will also provide financial help, she says.

The CNA model involves more than just collective bargaining, stresses Kay
McVay, president of the 35,000-member organization. She tells Nurses.com that
CNA activities also involve lobbying, sponsorship of legislation, regulatory
activities, education in nursing practice, and research.

Whatever happens at the state capitol and in regulatory agencies affects
nurses, she notes, so that it's "absolutely important" that nurses be
represented in these areas.

It's also crucial that nurses are "aggressive in looking at the issues and
trying to educate the legislators and public about their rights and what they
should expect."

Conversations with what was to become the PASNAP actually began over a year
ago, McVay says. In March 2000, during a staff nurse assembly where
representatives from various states came, plans started to gel.

McVay tells Nurses.com that the CNA is also talking to Rhode Island about a
similar arrangement, though the conversation is "nebulous."

The president disavowed that the CNA is actively looking to replace ANA state
nurses associations. "We have no intention of taking over anybody's
organization-that is not our agenda," she says. Rather, "we want the nurses
themselves to become stronger and more articulate."

The CNA "has been very focused and dedicated to the patients and the nurses
and it shows," she asserts. But what a national organization would look like,
she says, was up in the air.

The CNA broke with the ANA in 1995, and nurses were prompted to leave because
they "didn't have a voice out in the nursing community." Instead, McVay says,
the power resided with those representing the interests of hospitals as
opposed to staff nurses.

PASNAP delegates were also joined by representatives of the Massachusetts
Nurses Association and United Nurses and Allied Professionals of Rhode
Island. A representative from the Maine State Nurses Association also sent
greetings, according to PASNAP.

PASNAP says it will establish offices in early June in Wilkes-Barre, suburban
Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. Initially, they'll likely be headquartered in
suburban Philadelphia, but will try to locate the headquarters in the center
of the state.

Messages of support have come to PASNAP from various labor organization.
These include the United Steelworkers of America, the United Mine Workers of
America, and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America.

Copyright ©1996-2000
All rights reserved.

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Messages from the Internet:

Sun, Jun 4, 2000, 1:50 AM

Folks,
I am sending this on so each of us realize the impact we are having around
the country! It was written by a guy in Texas (who was formerly from
California) to the Texas Nurses Association (I believe). It was sent to me by
another nurse out west who wanted us to know this appeared on a nurse list
somewhere. It helps me to know that staff nurses across the country are
watching us and looking to us as a force (Don't miss the last line he wrote!)
Barry
___________________________________________________________

I am a member of TNA and I work at the front lines of nursing-direct patient
care. I am telling you direct and up front that the Texas Nurses Association
is NOT representing what nurses are asking for on the front lines. There were
multiple great reasons California disaffiliated from the ANA and many more
great reasons the Massachusetts Nurses Association has been supposedly
considering disaffiliation. Nurses in Pennsylvania have joined with
California Nurses Association. TNA needs to start focusing on what California
and Massachusetts are doing and follow this path and do it quickly. You will
not increase your membership of the front line nurse by focusing on issues
such as production of more nurses for Texas. People are not choosing to enter
the profession for many reasons. The shortage is not going to improve if it
remains unfavorable for the professionals doing the work. My strong feeling
is that TNA is blind to what is really happening. I am convinced that TNA is
run by nurse administrators and educators. The fact that you have drafted a
resolution against collective bargaining is absolutely inconceivable and
demonstrates your true lack of a sense of reality and committment to the
majority of nurses in Texas. I just came back from 11 months in California
and I am hearing the word Union mentioned by nurses in Austin and Houston. We
are fed up with the low pay, working conditions, and backwards management
principles in Texas. If you want members, you need to start acting like a
state nursing association that will do something really effective to make our
jobs safer for ourselves and our patients. The request for peer review form
has numerous flaws that you fail to acknowledge or even think about
correcting. Most nurses I have worked with still don't know what the form is.
MD Anderson hospital told their nurses about the form in a publicity stunt
and false demonstration of concern for patient safety. I have received some
of the most dangerous assignments of my career in that Intensive Care Unit.
Texas nurses have been more unified and vocal than I have seen them in my 5
years of working here. We are ready for significant change and real
protection. If the Texas Nurses Association does not step forward to fulfill
this role, we will find another entity to do this for us. As it stands
currently, I do not trust my state nurses association or their current
intentions. My patience has run out and I am not interested in communication
based on politically correct principles. My license and my patients lives are
on the line more than ever. Nursing malpractice insurance costs considerably
more in Texas than most other states. Maybe the lack of autonomy and
discouragement of nurses to advocate for their patients (don't wake up the
doctor, don't question the doctor, don't complain to admin. - OR BE FIRED!)
has a little something to do with it. Several nurses at the Ben Taub
Emergency Department in Houston went to the press last week stating a demand
for increased pay and more staff. I HOPE THE TEXAS NURSES ASSOCIATION HAS
BEEN THERE TO SUPPORT THESE NURSES AND ENSURE THEY KEEP THEIR JOBS - THIS IS
A PERFECT OPPORTUNITY FOR YOU TO PROVE YOUR WORTH AND COMMITTMENT TO NURSES
AT THE BEDSIDE. If you do not support these nurses publicly, I will
definitely expect a valid explanation for your lack of action. I am a member
and you serve me in your position. I am telling you what is being said at the
bedside and what nurses want. I have spoken to nurse managers and they have
some strange idea that they know what their staff want and don't want. If the
TNA "leadership" consists of nurses with interests of administration in mind
- GET RID OF THEM AND DO IT QUICKLY. What in the hell is it going to take for
TNA leadership to see what is going on AND do something about it? I am firmly
convinced that you will have an "answer" for everything I have said. You
could just write me off as an angry nurse "going off." What you are reading
are the words of a nurse in Texas at the bedside. I am repeating my words and
words of my colleagues. Remember, YOU SERVE US, not the administrators and
regulators. ASK THE LEADERS OF CALIFORNIA AND MASSACHUSETTS NURSES
ASSOCIATION TO TEACH YOU HOW TO BE REAL NURSE ADVOCATES.

I look forward to your reply,
Steven S. Lee, RN
Austin, Texas
(512) 383-8062

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Reply-To: UnionTalk@egroups.com
Subject: [UnionTalk] Nursing Shortage Healthcare Emergency

In a message dated 6/5/2000 11:04:58 AM Eastern Daylight Time, writes:

Repost from Nurse Advocate. I consider this article to express the truth as
to the reasons for this shortage. Beth

Friday June 2 5:57 PM ET

Nurses Rally to Head Off Shortages

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000602/hl/nurses_1.html

By Eliza Bussey

WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) - Calling an emerging nurse shortage ``a
healthcare emergency,'' members of the Federation of Nurses and Health
Professionals (FNHP) met in Washington, DC, Friday to set a strategic battle
plan to improve working conditions, ensure better patient care, and find ways
to attract young people into the profession.

According to US Department of Labor statistics, 450,000 additional registered
nurses and 136,000 licensed practical nurses will be needed by the year 2008.

Sandra Feldman, president of the American Federation of Teachers' (AFT's)
53,000-member nursing union told the audience that poor working conditions
and job dissatisfaction are resulting in burnout and diminished patient care,
and that retiring nurses are not being replaced.

``Eighty-two percent of the US nurses report being dissatisfied with the
quality of care they are giving patients, and this epidemic of
disillusionment and dissatisfaction is as serious as any disease,'' Feldman
said.

The union plans to fight for better patient care by ensuring there are enough
skilled nurses to adequately handle patients, and will fight against double
shifts and mandatory overtime.

Julie Pinkhman (sic) , a registered nurse and director of Labor Relations at
the Massachusetts Nurses Association, told the audience that as a last
resort, going on strike can be effective. Pinkhman (sic) described the March
1st (sic) strike of 615 nurses in Massachusetts that lasted 41 days.
Pinkhman (sic) said the nurses picketed for a contract that banned mandatory
overtime and shifts lasting more than 12 hours straight.

``We considered it victory not just for ourselves, but for our patients,''
Pinkhman (sic) said. ``Ninety percent of the town was behind us--we even had
farmers in the picket line. We fought for better healthcare against the
second largest for-profit corporation in the US and won.''

On the legislative front, AFT associate director of legislation, Bill
Cunningham, told Reuters Health that lobbying efforts are under way on
Capitol Hill to ensure patient protection. ``We are really pushing the
whistleblower section in the Patient's Bill of Rights, and for federal
needlestick legislation, and it is a good start,'' he said. Needlestick
legislation is aimed at taking additional measures such as the use of safety
needles to reduce the risk of accidental injuries from used needles, a
problem that puts healthcare workers at risk for blood-borne diseases
including hepatitis B and AIDS.