FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 24, 2001

Contact:

Denise Garlick, RN 781-449-7338 or 781-864-1595 (Mobile)
Karen Higgins, RN 781-331-5139 or 617-827-6910 (Mobile)
Julie Pinkham, RN 781-830-5729 or 617-901-1948 (Mobile)
David Schildmeier 781-249-0430 or 508-426-1655 (Pager)

Massachusetts Nurses Association Votes To Disaffiliate from National
Organization, Sets Course for More Progressive, Pro-Staff Nurse Agenda

More than 80 % of the Nurses Vote for Split at Special Meeting Held in
Worcester

(WORCESTER, Mass). At a historic and closely watched meeting held at
Mechanics Hall in Worcester today, members of the Massachusetts Nurses
Association (MNA) voted by an overwhelming margin to disaffiliate from the
American Nurses Association (ANA).

The vote was held at a special business meeting called to decide the issue,
drawing the largest ever attendance at an MNA meeting in the organization’s
98-year history. More than 2338 nurses attended the meeting, twice as many
nurses as attended a previous meeting on the same issue held last November.
The final tally was 1925 to 413, with more than 80% of the members attending
the meeting voting in favor of a bylaw change to authorize the split with
ANA, easily exceeding the two-thirds super majority required.

Nurses were jubilant after the vote, as it signified not only a break with
the ANA, but a significant step in the MNA’s evolution as a powerful voice
for progressive action on the nursing and health care front. Those calling
for disaffiliation from ANA raised concerns about the ANA as being too
moderate and slow to respond to a growing crisis in nursing, including the
impact of managed care, health care corporatization, short staffing,
mandatory overtime and other issues causing turmoil for nurses at the
bedside. For example, while the MNA is pushing for legislation to regulate
nurse-to-patient ratios, the ANA has proposed weak regulations that call upon
the industry to develop a patient classification system, with no requirement
that the industry adhere to that system. They have also promoted legislation
granting the industry the ability to experiment with staffing models that
replace nurses with unlicensed personnel, something the nursing community has
opposed for years.

"This is our day of independence, and it is a day when front-line nurses
across this state and this nation are empowered," said Denise Garlick, RN,
President of the MNA and a strong proponent of the split from ANA. "The MNA
has claimed its power and, with this vote, will have the resources necessary
to move an aggressive agenda in Massachusetts to fight for safe staffing
legislation that will improve the safety of the patients we care for."

"It is clear from this vote that the MNA membership does not feel ANA
advocates for the interest of nurses on the frontlines of health care.
Rather its leadership is weighted toward the industry and as a result the
profession and our patients have suffered. The ANA’s silence of action on
the issues of importance has been deafening—MNA nurses as strong advocates
for their patients and their profession are unwilling to be co-opted by the
industry through the ANA. And so they will move in a direction consistent
with their values and with the public trust bestowed on them, they will
advocate for the patients aggressively at the bedside and external venues be
it political, legislative or public relations—and they will join with other
progressive nurses to fill the void that exists."

Supporters of disaffiliation also raised concerns about the structure of the
ANA’s recently established national union for nurses, the United American
Nurses (UAN).
The MNA union membership had voted unanimously in 1999 not to join the UAN,
because they believed its governing structure was inadequate to protect the
integrity of the MNA labor program. The concern relates to the concept of
insulation, a labor term that refers to the amount of separation needed
between management influence in the conduct of union business. Under the
current UAN structure, the ANA Board of Directors, which is comprised of
nurse managers, as well as the ANA executive director, have decision making
power related to the UAN. The lack of proper insulation makes those who
belong to the national union subject to legal changes by anti-union
management attorneys.

The issue was intensified in December when the ANA/UAN voted to make
membership by ANA state nurses associations with labor programs mandatory in
June. The ANA also proposed and will seek passage of a "discipline" bylaw,
that would give them the power to sanction state nurses associations that
fail to follow their bylaws and their positions. The MNA believed if they
didn’t vote to disaffiliate now, under the new discipline bylaw, they may
never have that opportunity again.
"Our membership was not willing to take the risk of being forced into a union
structure that in any way jeopardized the integrity of our own union," said
Karen Higgins, elected leader of the MNA’s union arm. "Our members clearly
understood the inherent conflict of belonging to a union that was ultimately
run by representatives of the industry we sit across the table from every day
in negotiations. One of the hottest issues in nursing right now is mandatory
overtime. In fact, the current ANA President, Mary Foley, the person with
the ultimate control of the UAN is a vice president of nursing who has used
mandatory overtime to staff her hospital."

The MNA, which represents more than 20,0000 nurses throughout the state, was
one of 54 constituent members of the American Nurses Association’s federation
of state nurses associations. The MNA, which has been affiliated with the ANA
since 1903, was the second largest state nurses association after New York in
the ANA federation. In 1995, the California Nurses Association, which was the
largest member of the federation, also voted to disaffiliate, and has
experienced tremendous growth and unprecedented success since.

MNA’s Future is Looking Bright

Along with California, the MNA has been long perceived as an innovative and
progressive champion of nursing and health care reform, including taking a
leadership role on the state and national level on such issues as nurse
staffing, whistle blower protection, mandatory overtime, workplace safety,
and single payer health care reform of the health care system. A key benefit
of disaffiliation for the MNA is financial. The organization will now be
able to allocate the $1.2 million per year that once went to ANA for its own
use in support of the MNA’s agenda at the state and national level for the
benefit of nurses in Massachusetts. This year, that means supporting the
organization’s efforts to win safe staffing legislation to improve nurses’
practice conditions by mandating safe nurse-to-patient staffing ratios in all
health care settings.

With MNA’s new freedom, the organization plans to evaluate its current
working relationship with other like-minded independent nursing organizations
to create a more progressive, staff nurse-oriented national organization that
will give front-line caregivers an undiluted, uncompromised voice on issues
of particular concern to staff nurses. Work in this regard would involve
MNA’s members and ultimately would be ratified by the membership.

In fact, immediately after the vote, the MNA will meet with the California
Nurses Association and the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and
Allied Professionals, to begin discussions about the building of a new nurse
association that will include staff nurses and nurses who support them;
providing a forum for these organizations to push their agenda on the
national stage.

"There has been a lack of cohesion and a lack of a unified voice for
frontline caregivers in this nation that we are anxious to fill," said
Higgins. "While informal discussions and a working relationship have been
evolving between our organizations for more than two years, we are now in a
position to undertake the real work necessary to build something totally new
and powerful to change nursing and health care in this nation. Our plan is
to begin meeting to develop the core principles of a new national
organizational, as well as to outline a possible structure that we can all
take back to our membership for further development and discussion. Unlike
the ANA, no decisions on a national organization will become a reality
without our members having the opportunity to discuss, define and vote to
ratify such a structure."

Now that Massachusetts and California, two of the largest and most powerful
state nurses associations are out of the ANA Federation, the MNA expects
other, staff nurse-oriented states to consider doing the same. The state of
Maine, in fact, will hold its own vote on disaffiliation in April.

"We are ready and willing to join forces with other states who are committed
to fighting for frontline caregivers and for taking strong stands on patient
care issues and the protection of our profession," said Garlick. "This is
truly the beginning of a bright and powerful future for nurses, not only here
in Massachusetts, but anywhere else in this nation where there are nurses who
want to be part of a movement for real reform and dramatic change."

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