Unions

Nurse super-union sets agenda, aims to get staff ration laws passed

By Lori Rotenberk

With more than 150,000 members, new group may wield significant power

As a new national super-union ramps up its organizing and advocacy efforts, hospital executives are being cautioned to bolster their defenses.

"Focus on your vulnerabilities. Be educated about proposed legislation, educating everyone from the board to the employee level," says James Trivisonno, president, IRI Consultants, a Detroit-based firm dealing with labor relations. "Be certain your employees are engaged in their jobs. A happier workplace makes a more productive employee. Level with them, be straight with them in terms of wages and benefits and create a better workplace."

Earlier this month, the National Nurses United, comprising 150,000 nurses from 26 states, gathered in Arizona for its first convention. The union, the result of a merger between the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, the Massachusetts Nurses Association and United American Nurses, was announced last summer, but wasn't formalized until the fall. Topping the union's agenda: lobbying for increased staffing levels to improve nurse-to-patient ratios, providing support for whistle-blowers and improving pensions for nurses.

NNU will compete with the Service Employees International Union for membership. NNU leaders say that front-line workers need a stronger, more unified voice, even within the profession. For instance, they charge that the American Nurses Association works more in favor of managers. ANA officials did not comment for this article.

The union's top priority, says Karen Higgins, co-president of NNU and an intensive care unit nurse at Boston Medical Center, is to get legislation passed that will lower the number of patients under a nurse's care. "We want to be able to leave our jobs knowing that we gave each patient the best health care possible," she says. "In some hospitals, nurses are responsible for seven or eight patients."

Stephanie Dodge Gournis, a labor and employment attorney and partner at Chicago's Drinker Biddle & Reath, says it will be important to see if NNU attracts other nurse unions to join. She suggests that some may not be willing to pay added dues.

Moreover, Gournis believes that the SEIU will remain strong "because it focuses on forming collaborations" while CNA has a history of alienating individual health systems. "They are more in an attack mode and go at them with both barrels and are tenacious in organizing," she says.

Regardless, Trivisonno is advising his clients to pay attention, noting that "there's strength in numbers."

"The nurses unions had been competing with one another," Trivisonno explains. "As they come together to form this super-union, there will be less infighting and more of a focus on their goals. Any organization has the ability to leverage their power and impact an employer economically. There should be some concern about a strike. Nurses will be speaking in one voice instead of multiple voices, something that is difficult for management to whipsaw."

Hospitals should be aware of efforts by the NNU to persuade state legislatures to require hospitals to increase nurse staffing. That would negate hopes by policymakers and hospitals to invest in technology to increase efficiency and lower labor costs.

This article 1st appeared in the December 2009 issue of HHN Magazine.

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