FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
APRIL 30, 2001

Contact: Pat Philbrook, Executive Director, Maine State Nurses Association
PO Box 2240, Augusta, ME 04338, 207/622-1057

NURSES IN MAINE ACT FOR BETTER PATIENT CARE

Bangor, Maine. Registered nurses in the Maine State Nurses Association voted
April 28 in Bangor to sever their relationship with the American Nurses
Association (ANA), a national nursing federation. "This is a powerful act by
Maine nurses on behalf of the profession and patient care," said Judy Brown,
RN and member of the MSNA Economic and General Welfare (E&GW) Council. "With
this change, we are saying we will intensify our efforts here in Maine to
improve staffing in health care facilities and reach out to other nursing
groups beyond Maine to join us in addressing these issues. This is good for
nurses and good for patients."

Nurses from around the state, including Aroostook County, Downeast, western
and southern Maine converged in Bangor for the vote. Last fall we looked at
the question of disaffiliation but the membership was almost evenly divided
about what to do," said Pat Philbrook, RN and MSNA Executive Director.
"Following the MSNA October 2000 membership meeting, it became apparent that
ANA and MSNA were continuing to move in opposite directions. Our leadership
then set up a series of regional meetings and provided informational material
so nurses could make an informed choice and take a unified position one way
or another. It’s important that Maine nurses are unified in moving forward."

"The decision at this year’s meeting was an easy one, clearly a majority had
made up their mind. We had more nurses attending this meeting then usual, and
we voted by an 89% margin to leave the national federation. Maine nurses
decided the time had come for strong action. This vote means Maine nurses are
serious about fighting for better care for patients and better conditions in
health care for nurses," said Deb Kerr, RN and MSNA E&GW Council member. "We
welcome all nurses to join us in developing and supporting ways to improve
health care."

"I’m no longer working as a bedside nurse," said Gayle Gaynor, RN, "because
I developed a latex allergy working as a hospital RN. Latex exposure from
gloves and equipment is an increasing problem for patients and health care
providers. The national federation’s approach to this problem was to
encourage education on the issue. Maine nurses pushed for state legislation
to ban latex gloves to protect patients and care providers. This is just one
example of why nurses decided to make the change."

The pressure from the influence of managed care systems, mergers and
acquisitions within the industry, and increased competition have put the
health care industry in turmoil. Growing frustration with working conditions
and cuts in the quality of care has led nurses nationwide to leave nursing.
"A shortage of registered nurses exists in Maine as well. There is a lot that
can be done to turn that around. We need to keep RNs providing care because
RNs make a real difference in how well patients do," said Linda Hannigan, RN
and member of the MSNA Board and E&GWCouncil.

This statement is backed up by a study released April 19 that was conducted
by the Harvard University School of Public Health and funded by the US Health
and Human Services. The study, using 1997 data, looked at over 5 million
patient discharges from 799 hospitals in 11 states, finding a strong and
consistent relationship between nurse staffing and patient outcomes,
including length-of-stay, and the occurrence of shock and pneumonia.

The Maine State Nurses Association (MSNA) is the largest professional RN
association in Maine, with 1600 members. It has actively pursued staffing and
patient care issues in the last year. MSNA introduced bills in the state
legislature calling for staffing based on patient acuity, for a ban on
mandatory overtime for nurses, regulations to limit the spread of latex
allergies in health settings and a scholarship loan fund for nursing.

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

Maine nurses pull out of national organization
<http://www.wmtw.com/Global/story.asp?S=321577&nav=0Rbv>

May 2, 2001

BANGOR (AP) -- The Maine State Nurses Association has voted to leave the
American Nurses Association.
The vote was 259-31 at a meeting over the weekend in Bangor. The Mainers
join counterparts in Massachusetts, California and Pennsylvania. Nurses in
California and Pennsylvania decided to form their own association.
Critics of the national organization say it is too conservative and
stifles aggressive campaigns for change.
The Maine State Nurses Association has taken a more active role in
politics. Just this year it has supported four bills dealing with staffing
levels, mandatory overtime and latex gloves.
The organization represents nearly 1,300 union nurse members had about 310
nonunion members in Maine.

All content © Copyright 2000, 2001, WorldNow and WMTW. All Rights Reserved.

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

Maine nurses quit national affiliation
<http://www.bangornews.com/cgi-bin/article.cfm?storynumber=33261>

by Michael O’D. Moore, Bangor Daily News

May 2, 2001

Maine State Nurses Association members voted this weekend to quit the
American Nurses Association in order to be free to fight harder for better
work conditions for staff nurses in Maine, MSNA leaders said Tuesday.

MSNA members voted 259 to 31 in favor of the separation at their annual
meeting held in Bangor Saturday.

The Maine nurses follow Massachusetts and California associations that have
also dropped ANA affiliation. Last year 6,000 Pennsylvania nurses dropped out
of that state’s ANA-affiliated nursing association in order to align with
California’s nurses. The break-away organizations have all argued the ANA is
too conservative and stifles more aggressive campaigns for change.

"We felt we could do more by leaving," said Linda Hannigan, director of
MSNA’s Aroostook County region and an emergency room nurse at Houlton
Regional Hospital.

Just last October, MSNA nurses were divided on the separation issue, and the
ANA affiliation was maintained. At the time, MSNA challenged the national as
sociation to do more for staff nurses, said Judith Brown, president of the
MSNA’s unit at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. Little improved, she
said.

"The current structure and current political atmosphere in the ANA is that
they have to serve the interests of all the nurses, supervisor nurses,
educational nurses, nurse practitioners, nonlabor nurses and labor nurses,"
Brown said. Therefore, not enough was being done on issues that MSNA sees as
crucial, she said.

Hope Hall, a spokeswoman for the ANA, disagreed, saying the association has
had bills in Congress on some of the same issues with which the MSNA is
concerned.

In a prepared statement, ANA president Mary E. Foley said the move would hurt
Maine’s nurses who would no longer have ANA’s national resources and
influence to achieve good contracts, organize workers and get legislation
passed.

MSNA took a more active role in Maine politics this year by supporting four
bills before the Maine Legislature that deal with controversial issues like
nurse-staffing levels, mandatory overtime and the use of latex gloves, which
are blamed for causing allergies in some nurses.

MSNA, with 1,290 union nurse members and about 310 nonunion nurse members,
isn’t the only nurse organization in Maine. For instance, the Organization of
Maine Nurse Executives represents supervising nurses.

Brown said MSNA members had other concerns with the national association. ANA
is proposing dues increases and technical bylaw changes that MSNA’s lawyer
said would leave the organization open to legal challenges if more hospitals
are organized into unions, she said.

Hall said, however, that the ANA believes its bylaw changes pose no legal
threat to states with hospitals whose nurses organize into unions.

In Maine, nurses have unionized at EMMC, Calais Regional Hospital, Down East
Community Hospital in Machias, Houlton Regional Hospital, Maine Coast
Memorial Hospital in Ellsworth, Millinocket Regional Hospital, Mount Desert
Island Hospital and The Aroostook Medical Center in Presque Isle, according
to MSNA.

Maine Hospital Association spokesman Jim Harnar said the separation moves by
Maine, Massachusetts and California nurses’ organizations reflect national
labor organization agendas.

"This is more an effort to stop losses in union membership than it is about
patient care," Harnar said.

He said MHA is interested in seeing whether MSNA affiliates with other labor
unions or other states. If that happens, some decision-making could migrate
out of state, he said.

MSNA officials said they would take the next two or three months to consider
their strategy.

Harnar said regardless of potential affiliations down the road, there are
other consequences.

"One potential unfortunate outcome of this is nurses could lose access to
[ANA] professional development and training that in the long run could
improve patient care," Harnar said.

Hannigan scoffed at the assertion, saying she had more non-ANA training
opportunities around Houlton than she could take advantage of.

Brown said breaking ties with the ANA would reap financial benefits at home.
About $120,000 in dues typically sent to the national organization will now
be available for use in Maine, she said. It will allow the MSNA to have a
full-time state lobbyist in Augusta and pursue other activities to further
its interests, she said.

When Massachusetts voted 1,925 for separation and 413 against last month,
lawsuits ensued over the procedure.

MSNA’s Brown said Maine learned from that. She expects no challenge. The ANA
isn’t as concerned about Maine as it is about Massachusetts, which paid about
$2 million a year to ANA, she said.

©2001 Bangor Daily News. All rights reserved.

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

Massachusetts Nurses Quit American Nurses Association

by Sandy Eaton, Board of Directors, MNA

Labor Notes, May, 2001, Page 1

Nearly 2,500 members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association assembled in
Worcester, Mass. on March 24 to vote on disaffiliating from the century-old
American Nurses Association. The tally: 1,925 to 413, or 82.3 percent,
supporting disaffiliation.
The vote destabilizes the ANA and marks a shift in the balance of forces
within unionized nursing. The deficit-ridden ANA stands to lose 10 percent of
its dues base ($100,000 per month at current rates).
The ANA began as a professional organization and today includes nurses in
management and teaching, non-union nurses, and nurses under collective
bargaining agreements. Many of these unionized members are watching closely,
and in several state associations still affiliated to ANA, staff nurses have
the power to change course should they choose. The Maine State Nurses
Association was closely split over disaffiliation last october, but will be
voting again April 28.
ANA’s legitimacy as a national voice for nurses is called into question
by the growing number of nurses who want to clearly defend the integrity of
nursing practice and to confront the corporate agenda for health care.
The contrast between the interests of staff nurses and management nurses
is illustrated by two conferences that took place on the same day in
Massachusetts. On April 6 the MNA sponsored a conference on the crisis in
hospital staffing and on laws mandating certain nurse-patient ratios. At the
same time, the Massachusetts Organization of Nurse Executives assembled to
plan ways to defeat mandated staffing levels.

Allying with California and Pennsylvania

On March 25, MNA leaders met with their counterparts from the California
Nurses Association and the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and
Allied Professionals - both already independent of the ANA - to discuss how
to build a national nurses’ movement. Agreement has already been reached on
the broad outlines of what needs to be accomplished, and a plan agreed to on
the steps the deliberations must follow in order to have a proposal on
structure to present to the respective state memberships in conventions this
fall.
Goals include passage of federal legislation banning mandatory overtime
except in a government-declared emergency, state legislation mandating
enforceable nurse-patient ratios in all health settings with provision for
increased staffing as patient acuity rises, an absolute commitment to
single-payer universal health insurance, and coordination with Canadian
nurses to prevent the spread of "Americanized" health care.

Second Vote

It was the MNA’s second vote on disaffiliation; the first, in November
2000, drew 62 percent support - short of the two-thirds required. After the
vote, the majority of the Board of Directors voted to reaffirm commitment to
disaffiliation and replaced the pro-ANA executive director. In protest, the
president and four other pro-ANA board members resigned. The resulting board
vacancies were then filled in accordance with MNA bylaws.
The gloves then came off, as ANA proclaimed the leadership changes a
"coup" carried out by "the enemy within." The pro-ANA camp used
telemarketing, glossy mailings, and imported organizers and brought in
lawyers from ANA to file suits attempting to stop the vote. The narrow defeat
in November turned into a blessing, as a thorough campaign of internal
organizing, working primarily through local leaders talking with members,
transformed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of members into independence
activists.
Big questions are at stake for nurses as they choose how to organize
themselves. Patient advocacy or corporate partnership? A national nurses’
movement or amalgamation into an "industrial" union? Adaptation to the
current health care model or all-out war to eliminate private insurance and
other parasitical elements? MNA intends to be at the forefront of these
debates.

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

UFCW Welcomes United American Nurses As An AFL-CIO Affiliate

To: National Desk, Labor Reporter
Contact: Greg Denier, 202-466-1591 or Jill Cashen, 202-728-4797

WASHINGTON, May 2 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Doug Dority, President of the 1.4
million member United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW),
extended his welcome to the United American Nurses (UAN) following the
AFL-CIO's decision to grant a charter to the registered nurses organization.

The UAN and its parent organization, the American Nurses Association, has
been seeking status as a charted organization of the nation's largest labor
federation, the AFL-CIO. The UFCW was a strong proponent and leading advocate
for the UAN position in the charter debate. UFCW President Dority is a member
of the AFL-CIO's Executive Council and cast his vote to grant UAN the
sought-after charter.

Registered nurses are increasingly organizing into unions as managed and
profit-centered care are pressuring the traditional professionalism and
patient-centered care of the nurse. Organized nurses have become a leading
voice for keeping care in the health care system.

"Registered nurses are key to protecting health care quality. Unionization is
key to making sure that the voice of the nursing profession is heard on
issues from salaries to staffing," said Dority.

Affiliation of the UAN with the AFL-CIO will require a vote of the UAN/ANA
governing body.

The UFCW through its health care division has been actively organizing
registered nurses and other health care professionals. Registered nurses at
Lakeland Regional Medical Center in Lakeland, Florida and St. John's Mercy
Medical Center in St. Louis, Missouri made history by organizing for a voice
on the job with the UFCW in the past several years. Health care
professionals, nursing home workers and other caregivers continue to stand up
for a voice on the job with the UFCW.

"We look forward to working together with the UAN to build a strong movement
among registered nurses. With 2 million unorganized nurses in the country, w