Great Hall is too small for crowd
by Richard Nangle, Telegram & Gazette Staff
March 25, 2001
WORCESTER-- More than 2,000 nurses came to Mechanics Hall yesterday to
deliver a crushing blow to the American Nurses Association: a vote to secede
-- courtesy of the Massachusetts Nurses Association.
The vote, which required a two-thirds majority, came amid charges and
countercharges that nurses on both sides did not fully understand the issues.
It also came in the wake of a November vote in which secession was narrowly
defeated. An MNA leadership shakeup followed.
While the MNA accused the ANA of failing to take a leadership role in
fighting for quality health care, the ANA accused the MNA of a smear campaign.
Amid the confusion, however, the vote was not close. But neither was it
binding. A federal judge on Friday granted a preliminary injunction requested
by three nurses who were hoping to block yesterday's vote. So the final tally
is at least several days away.
But for now, the vote for secession is 1,925 to 413.
The nurses who filed in federal court had complained that their rights were
being violated because religious obligations would preclude attendance at the
meeting.
The federal court ruling said yesterday's vote would be nonbinding until the
votes of people who were unable to attend are added in.
"It can't be binding until we provide an opportunity for people that had to
work and people with religious reasons," said the MNA's David Schildmeier.
"We have a week to work out the process, to get ballots to the others."
Nurses trying to get into the meeting spilled out onto Main Street yesterday
morning in anticipation of the 1 p.m. start of the vote. When the Great Hall
did not prove large enough to accommodate everyone, others were sent to
Washburn Hall and the Worcester Centrum Centre.
"We have business meetings every year," Mr. Schildmeier said. "And 1,100 is
the highest ever for an MNA business meeting."
Mr. Schildmeier said MNA leaders who supported secession want to pursue
affiliation with "like-minded progressive organizations."
The California Nurses Association split off from the national organization
several years ago and has become a model for MNA forces who want to do the
same.
While the MNA represents organized nurses, it is also a professional
organization that nonunion nurses may belong to voluntarily.
An expected 41 percent ANA fee hike, coupled with a mandate to join the
United American Nurses union, has been a catalyst for the MNA's secession
movement. But many nurses are concerned with more weighty issues that have to
do with the direction of health care in the United States.
ANA forces, however, argue that without the unified front, nurses will have a
more difficult time making themselves heard on major health care issues.
MNA members pay $1.2 million a year to the ANA.
The MNA wants to focus its resources on safe staffing legislation that is
pending on Beacon Hill.
The MNA has been a member of the ANA federation since its inception in 1903,
and is the second-largest state nurses association in the ANA federation.
©2001 Worcester Telegram & Gazette Corp.
-----------------------------
Nurses vote to split from national union
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 25, 2001
BOSTON - Members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association voted overwhelmingly
yesterday to sever ties with its national affiliate, saying Bay State nurses
will be better represented by an independent organization.
The vote at Worcester's Mechanics Hall was 1,925 in favor of severing ties
with the American Nurses Association and 413 against - an 82 percent majority
well in excess of the two-thirds supermajority needed to make the split.
The vote is not yet binding, because U.S. District Judge George A. O'Toole
Jr. ruled Friday that MNA members unable to attend yesterday's meeting must
be given an opportunity to vote.
The vote will be final once nurses who could not leave work yesterday are
allowed to cast ballots.
Leaders of the 20,000-member MNA say they want to lead a progressive nursing
movement with nurses in other states.
Nurses in California split from the ANA in 1995, and the MNA believes it can
replicate the California nurses' success, spokesman David Schildmeier said.
"I think the same nurses who came here will be the same nurses willing to
march on the Statehouse to pass staffing legislation," said MNA president
Denise Garlick. "I think nurses in Massachusetts are willing to lead."
The MNA's goals include organizing more of the state's 100,000 nurses and
winning passage of a law mandating "safe staffing" rations of nurses to
patients.
"The nursing profession depends on nurses willing to stand up as strong
patient advocates," Garlick said.
ANA spokeswoman Hope Hall said the split will hurt nurses in Massachusetts.
"Our feeling is nurses are under siege due to poor management," Hall said.
"We think nurses are more effective when we work together cohesively."
A vote to split with the ANA last November failed by 42 votes.
Leaders of the MNA said the ANA is more moderate than the Massachusetts
group, and the union differs with the ANA on a number of fronts.
They believe the ANA has an inherent conflict of interest because its
membership includes hospital managers and supervisors.
The MNA also contends that the ANA hasn't done enough to promote proposals
abolishing mandatory overtime and setting mandatory nurse-patient ratios.
But Hall said the national group has been a "very vocal" advocate for nurses
on the same issues that concern the MNA.
Copyright © 2001 Cape Cod Times. All rights reserved.
-------------------------
Subj: 1,925 to 413 victory
Date: 3/26/01 7:58:17 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: BAKMBoston
To: