The lying leadership of the American Nurses Association (ANA) and the lies that will be the ruin of us all!
They’re at it again, those prevaricating leaders of the ANA, misrepresenting their membership numbers and of course the media that seems more concerned with regurgitating a press release then actually fact checking what the ANA spoon feeds them and then writing their own story instead they are complicit in perpetuating the ANA’s lie. If not for the media aiding and abetting the ANA in their fabrication, the ANA would have long ago stopped their prevaricating ways (or at least some of them) and not pretend that they represent the interest of nurses that aren’t even members of their organization.
President Obama (a man, I think, that’s never met a misstatement that he hasn’t liked) stands before the American people and tells us that his “plan” for health care reform which is not even his own (the plan actually belongs to Congress and in particular the Democratic-controlled Congress) has the backing of the nurses, as if all 2.9 million of us have held a convention and come to an agreement on his “vision” and we’re unanimous about our support of his “plan” when we are far from an agreement on his or any other plan being floated out there. What he means to say is that the ANA, a nursing organization that reportedly represents somewhere between 180,000 to 190,000 thousand RNs out of the almost 3 million RNs that are active in this country, is behind him when the reality is that just a little over 15% (and that’s assuming that all of the ANA’s members agree) of America’s RNs are behind him and his efforts when he refers to the support of the nurses and the ANA.
All the while they’re in their white lab coats and scrubs in neat little lines behind the President using the illusion of the organization’s large membership to provide him with credibility, just like the American Medical Association right before their membership blew the lid off of their charade of being the voice of the American doctor; and yet few have questioned the validity of the ANA’s claim of representing the interest of 2.9 million RNs. What’s truly ironic is that a membership of nearly 200,000 is a respectable number by nearly any standard, especially for nurses who can be as hard as herding cats when it comes to getting them to join a group. But no the nursing leadership of the ANA can’t help themselves and they have to pretend that they represent all of “nursingdom”, and I know I’m not the only one who’s grown tired of their lies and misrepresentations.
In their latest press release they have the gall to open their press release citing the statistic that nurses, once again, are ranked as one of our nation’s most trusted professions, and yet they think nothing of misrepresenting the facts when it comes to their membership and it’s a slippery slope because as the saying goes little lie, big lie. The ANA doesn’t nor has it ever even come close to represent the interest of all of America’s RNs, they as a membership organization can only represent their members and unless you pay the ANA cold cash you’re not a member thus limiting their sphere of representation to those nurses who consent to be members of the ANA. But the ANA like the AMA has long held an over inflated sense of self-worth and this has caused them to misrepresent their membership base just so they can have a seat at the table. It’s time for the ANA to come clean and cite their actual membership numbers and leave the rest of the 2,710,000 of us alone because we didn’t appoint them our spokesperson or spokes organization.
In response to a query
The AFL-CIO just released an announcement that heralds the following: “Catholic Bishops, Health Providers, Unions cooperate to support workers’ rights”. The headline and the subsequent list can easily leave the reader believing that employer, workers and union organizers have agreed to a set of very good and positive principals. However, you’d be wrong because according to the AFL-CIO blog post that details this accord “the new guidelines cover seven principals for employers when workers seek a union”, the operative word here is employers. In short, the guidelines only apply to employers, not to the employee in favor or opposed to unions, or the union organizers themselves. And though this is not quite as egregious of an agreement as the odious Tenet/C.N.A. (an affiliate of the AFL-CIO) neutrality agreement, which handed over the personal information of registered nurses (without the knowledge of those same RNs) at C.N.A.-targeted hospitals it’s still nonetheless a one-sided accord.
The seven principals for employers when workers seek a union:
Respect;
Access to information;
Truthful communication;
Pressure-free environment;
Expeditious process;
Honoring employee decisions; and
Meaningful enforcement of these principals
How can I tell, because of the term employers in the sentence, and not phrases such as all parties, everyone, all concerned and so forth? So once again unions have found a way to stack the deck. What’s truly sad is that the guidelines suggested above are well meaning, but without them being applied to all, and I mean all parties (that would include employee both in opposition to and in favor of union representation and the union organizers) this then leaves the door open for union and their supporters to engage in bad behavior without fear of repercussions (this would also go for the employees who are in opposition to union representation).
Additionally several of the phrases are subjective rather than objective. For example, how are we defining truthful communication, pressure-free environment and meaningful enforcement? I ask this since one person’s pressure could be another person directly asked question. Truthful communication? What does that mean? For example in a recent flyer put out by the C.N.A., an AFL-CIO affiliate, numerous duplicate signatures, unidentified employee signatures, terminated employee signatures, and signatures of people in favor of decertification were found on a “petition” to encourage Cy-Fair nurses to vote against decertification. When a C.N.A. representative was asked why such a flyer was even being distributed the response was oh well it was a printing error; but to many individuals including myself this flyer was less than truthful, but apparently to the C.N.A. there was nothing “untruthful” about it.
So though the accord that seems to have been reached, I think it’s one step above an Election Procedures Agreement (EPA). If unions and employers were all about supporting the workers then these guidelines should’ve used more objective language and should’ve been written to include ALL parties. All too often unions accuse non-union nurses as being surrogates for management thus putting into question the motives of these nurses; and pro-nursing union nurses are often found exhibiting less then positive adult like behavior. The union gets the option of pointing the finger of blame to the first and ignoring the bad acts of the later; while employers do the same in reverse – meanwhile it’s the nurses themselves that suffer in the end. Or you have experiences such as the nurses in Houston and Philadelphia where hospital management was so cowed by the EPA that they decided to not respond to any questions that nurse had that remotely referenced the union, and barred any message by pro-union messages going so far as to give the union a glass covered bulletin board, but no such favor to the “No to the union” nurses. Is this fair? Does it fall in line with the above AFL-CIO guidelines?
You may wonder why I even decided to address the AFL-CIO accord with the Catholic Bishops et al; simple the link was sent to be by someone identifying himself or herself as:
hello
Submitted on 2009/07/09 at 3:24am
I’d like to know your thoughts on this:
I found the query trapped in my spam folder since both the name and email appeared suspicious to my spam blocker. I did a quick whois search and found that it had been sent from the servers at the California Nurses Association (you can find a copy here). I wonder what ulterior motive the C.N.A. had in sending me this link to their affiliated organization? Are they contemplating adopting a similar, somewhat more restrained approach to their well know aggressive organizing? Well who’s to know the real motivation behind someone from the C.N.A. office had for sending me this link; but respond I have, with my opinion.
Professional Nursing Union Buster or the Bête Noire of the Nursing Unions?
Imagine finding flyers posted all over a hospital sounding the “alert that a professional union buster was on site”, and that flyer used to identify a nearly 70 year old great grandmother who has to use an electric scooter to get around. What power this person must have to send the California Nurses Association (C.N.A.) in paroxysm’s of fear and panic and to engage in their usually tactics of lies and misinformation. I was met with just such exhibitions fear-mongering and hysteria by C.N.A. recruiters, representatives and supporters when I made a recent visit at the invitation of a fellow nurse from Cy-Fair Hospital in Houston.
Their flyer identified me as a professional union buster, which I guess is a recognition of how much they fear my presence; but truth be told I’m not a professional union buster, and in particular I’m not a nursing union buster. The C.N.A. and many other pro-union people love to use the word union-buster since it tends to invoke images of a Simon LeGreed character replete with requisite black hat and cloak and evil laugh.
I have nothing against unions for the blue-collar worker, but I’m far from convinced that professionals such as registered nurses need unions to represent them. So when nurses contact me for my opinion and advise about how to speak for themselves I am always happy to help my fellow RN in advocating for our profession and for themselves. I’m happy to help in the effort of showing nurses that they can and do have a strong voice as both an individuals and as a group without paying a nursing union dues of upwards to $80.00 a month for the favor.
In the case of two recent nursing union attempts, one nursing staffs’ attempt to stay free from the C.N.A. and one nursing staffs’ attempt to decertify from the C.N.A. As fate would have it, I was in a position where I could help both in spirit and in person so I did. At the first hospital my fellow nurse and I found C.N.A. representatives playing shenanigans with hospital elevators so that the floor where a “No to the C.N.A.” nurse had been given a meeting room was locked out. This malfunction only affected the one floor that we had to reach on both days, what a coincidence. You may wonder why I think C.N.A. representatives capable of such underhanded techniques. Simple, I still haven’t forgotten a C.N.A. strike in the San Fernando Valley where pro-C.N.A. nurses locked out much need medical equipment, hiding/destroying manuals, etc., so that the relief nurses were hard pressed to provided nursing care to patients many of whom were in intensive care; and the C.N.A. strike was suppose to be all about their concern for patient safety — go figure! And at the second hospital I got treated to the experience of being stalked by not one, not two, but upwards to three C.NA. representatives at a time. The situation became of such concern that hospital HR and security had to become involved; but I guess I should feel honored that the C.N.A. felt the need to have so many people watching my every move.
Whether or not nurses chose a union to represent them or not should be up to the nurses themselves but this seems to rarely be the case these days. As in the case of the Tenet Healthcare/C.N.A. neutrality agreement Houston nurses that had opposing views to the C.N.A. material, propaganda or message had no one to turn to; at least that’s what the C.N.A. representatives thought, except they overlooked a grassroots network of informed RNs that were available for these nurses to reach out to; which they did and we responded. One would think that the C.N.A. representatives would be excited to learn that nurses were empowering one another, oh that’s right it only counts if the nursing unions are doing the empowering. So sorry, we didn’t get that memo. One would also think that the C.N.A. would invite and encourage an open and lively discussion about the benefits of a nursing union, but they couldn’t be bothered to even accept the invitation extended by one group of nurses to present their viewpoint in an open debate. Instead they skulked about passing out flyers full of misstatements and lies since it so much easier to insult the intelligence of nurses rather than respect them.
In the case of the flyer (see a copy here at http://clavreul.org/Gallery.php) they suggested that the nurses ask me a set of questions, and I responded with an open letter (see a copy here at http://clavreul.org/Gallery.php). One pro-C.N.A. nurse chose to mark up my open letter with graffiti instead of addressing me nurse to nurse. But then again it’s become common practice for pro-nursing union nurses to engage in such childish behavior. It’s a sad day when our honorable profession is marred by such immature behavior. However, I see these as indicators of how much the organizational structure of the C.N.A. fears nurses who chose to take back or carry on with their own voice. In the past several years their membership has been declining (their last official report in 2008 has their membership at just over 72,000 almost a full 8,000 or 13,000 drop depending on which C.N.A. official report you read). I think it’s this drop that has them scrambling for new members in the other 49 states.
But in some parts of our country nurses don’t want anything to do with them, and even when Tenet handed the C.N.A. the proverbial keys to the kingdom providing C.N.A. organizers unfettered and unprecedented access to RNs on the floor, scheduling information and even home addresses and telephone numbers; the C.N.A. has found resistance to their siren song. They couldn’t even gather enough cards at Park Plaza and Northwest Hospitals in Houston to even call an election and they slunk out of Houston so quietly that few even knew they had abandoned their organizational efforts. They accused one, that’s right ONE, nurse of trying to take away the union at Cy-Fair Hospital. What power this one nurse must have, I guess the well over 30% of eligible nurses that signed decertification cards meant nothing, it was all that one nurse’s fault. And this morning we learned that Hahnemann Hospital (another victim of the nefarious Tenet/C.N.A. neutrality agreement) had rejected the union. The C.N.A. had such access to the RNs at Hahnemann that nurses that opposed the C.N.A. had to get the NLRB to intervene just so they could get a meeting room in the bowels of the hospital and finally a table in the cafeteria (shortly before election day) and the union spokespeople whined that this was unfair.
So if our network of nurses, and me, in particular can help our fellow nurses when confronted with such behavior and that makes us professional nursing union busters in the eyes of the union then I guess that’s a cross we’ll just have to bear. I see it as the desperate actions of an organization that knows that people have begun to look behind the curtain that is the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee and they don’t like what they see. The more they howl about RNs empowering each other the more I know that I’m their bête noire and that’s a role I think I shall relish.
Hahnemann nurses kick C.N.A. …!
The nurse’s of Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia just got the news — they won in their election fight against the California Nurses Association (C.N.A.)! The vote count was 309 RNs against to 267 RNs in favor of unionization.
I wonder how the C.N.A. and their supporters will spin this election loss. No doubt they’ll issue a press release touting the narrow loss and I’m sure the press will parrot this statement. Just like when the C.N.A. won the vote at Cy-Fair in Houston by a margin of 8 (now that was a slim victory), but the C.N.A. touted the vote as though it was a resounding victory for nurses across Texas. So if we use their own reasoning then we can only conclude that if an 8-vote margin is a resounding win; then a 42-vote margin is one major whooping on behalf of the nurses in their rejection of the C.N.A. Maybe the Pennsylvania nurses might’ve been more receptive to the idea a nursing union if it had been a local nursing union that was courting their vote and not the carpet bagging C.N.A. and their well-known bullying tactics that was courting them?
To put things into perspective for folks, the nurses that weren’t keen on a nursing union had a very hard row to hoe. Like in Houston they found that their hospital and nursing management were in essence prohibited from offering them assistance thanks to a so-called neutrality agreement (for more one this agreement see “Like Thieves in the Night”) that had been signed between Tenet and the C.N.A. The agreement gave all the cards to the C.N.A. and their representatives to spread their message, but withheld equal support for the nurses that wanted to get their counter-message out. Things were so blatantly unfair that the NLRB actually intervened on behalf of the No to the C.N.A. nurses and granted these nurses a couple concessions: such as a meeting room that was somewhere in the “bowels” of the hospital so that only the most stalwart of nurses could find the meeting room and of course finally a table in the cafeteria. Throughout the process nurses, such as Nurse Hummel were stalked, photographed, and pilloried by the C.N.A. representatives. The C.N.A. pulled out all the stops even going so far as to paying for a pro-C.N.A. nurse from Cy-Fair hospital to come out and make the rounds through the hospital and producing a flyer depicting Hahnemann nurses attending a big pro-union rally in DC organized by the C.N.A. The only problem with the flyer was that the nurses pictured from Hahnemann Hospital never attended that event and had been plucked out of another photograph and pasted into this C.N.A. propaganda material. Nurse Hummel even made sure to invite the C.N.A. to attend a debate so that interested nurses could have an open discussion, but the C.N.A. was a no-show, which seems to be par for the course when it comes to dealing with the C.N.A.
I think that the C.N.A. finally met their match when RNs from several other states came out to offer their support, expertise and knowledge with those who simply wanted to be able to have their side of the story heard. I know that several nurses came out on their own dime and time; and as one of those nurses, I found the time I spent at Hahnemann enlightening and enjoyable. I was both pleased and honored to have met with not only Nurse Hummel (after so many telephone conversations) and the countless other RNs that came to our table or met us in the hallways and meeting rooms to share their story and to give me an opportunity to answer their questions.
So hats off to all the nurses (both anti & pro nursing union) of Hahnemann who turned out to vote (from what I’ve been told about 592 eligible nurses voted) that means nearly 60% of the eligible nurses voted in this election. I can only hope that the media fairly reports the outcome of the election and assuming that they even chose to report the vote outcome. For more information I invite you to visit the Hahnemann nurses website at: http://www.thepronurse.com/
And the LA Times wonders why their readership continues to shrink. . .
Newspapers across the country are suffering from declining readership, and many have either closed or are facing impending closure – most place the lion’s share of the blame on the Internet. Pundits claim the instant access offered by the Internet is driving people from the printed word to the electronic word. I’m not sure if I’m ready to buy into this conclusion, simply because I think there’s also a growing lack of confidence in the “objectivity” of newspapers among the reading public.
For example several weeks ago the LA Times ran an article, “Many Nursing jobs, but only the strong need apply” (http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr/27/health/he-nurses27). The article was available in its entirety on line nearly two days before it ran in the print version of the Los Angeles Times, and upon reading it I found that it appeared to have more in common with a PR piece for the C.N.A. rather than an unbiased, objective piece of reporting. I took issue with several parts of the article, and submitted a letter to the editor and one to the Reader’s Representative. I wasn’t sure if they’d run it, but I thought that at the very least they’d print a correction. They did neither, but after some persistent follow-up on my part; including several telephone calls to Ms. Gold, the reader representative which remain unanswered, and two calls to Mr. Newton, A Sr. VP at the LA Times who communicated with me that he ask the reporter to call me which she never did, and a lengthy conversation with someone named Maria they quietly ran my letter on the “Health” page in their internet edition. A copy of my letter can be found here (http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-hew-letters18-2009may18,0,3851881,full.story).
I felt compelled to address several shortcomings that I found in the article. The first and most obvious was the number of new licenses issued that the C.N.A. representatives tout to prove the success of the California Nurse/Patient ratio law that they helped push into law. Though it’s correct that there have been nearly 100,000 new licenses issued since the law was passed five years ago, a nearly equal number of licenses have been lost, so it’s been a wash. The reporter had an obligation to report the fact, not just the rhetoric. The reporter also appeared unable or unwilling to interview a variety of nurses, since the three nurses she interviewed were all from C.N.A.-represented hospitals, and if this was to be a pro-union piece she should have at least interviewed nurses from the S.E.I.U. and U.N.A.C.; better yet she should have interviewed two non-union nurses and one union nurse as this would have been a fairer representation of nurses. But the worst offense, in my opinion, was her failure to identify one of the nurses she interviewed as a member of the C.N.A./N.N.O.C. Council of Presidents.
It’s reporting and editing such as this that’s caused the reading public to loose faith on the ability of their local newspaper to report, rather than make, the news. Just like the LA Times refused to cover the recent “Anti-Tax” parties attended by thousands in LA based on the excuse that these were manufactured events; but would show up to cover a couple of hundred people who showed up at a recent LA School Board meeting to protest impending lay-offs. As anyone who has ever organized an event, protest or rally in this city knows, it’s all “manufactured” because as a rule you have to get permits, put out press releases, etc. So if events being organized and manufactured is the LA Times threshold then they shouldn’t cover any such event but of course they cover those that they seem sympathetic to. And this is one of the primary reasons, this citizen, thinks that people are turning to the Internet because more often than not we know the bias of blogs, forums and other “news sources” from these sites.
Like thieves in the night . . .
They came like thieves in the night, their goal simple to “steal” their way into one or more of the Tenet-run Houston hospitals. Their arrival wasn’t completely unexpected, it’s just that the Registered Nurses at CyFair, Northwest and Park Plaza, weren’t the ones that had invited them. Instead, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (C.N.A./N.N.O.C.) came under a rather notorious agreement known as a “neutrality agreement” and as the only union option. There would be those that might argue that a neutrality agreement isn’t such a bad thing, and it wouldn’t be if such an agreement were actually neutral. Most reasonable people would understand the term “neutral” to mean having no personal preference or not supporting or favoring either side in a war, dispute, or contest; but the agreement that the C.N.A./N.N.O.C. came in under, with the consent of Tenet management was far from neutral.
When I first learned of the neutrality agreement I asked for a copy and it wasn’t long before a copy appeared in my mail, and after reading the lengthy document it was clear that Tenet and the C.N.A./N.N.O.C. had entered into an agreement that benefited not the nurses but the union leadership of C.N.A./N.N.O.C. One could easily blame the leadership of C.N.A./N.N.O.C. for crafting such a one-sided contract, but the fault for agreeing to the overly restrictive terms lay firmly in the lap of Tenet management. As any good contract negotiator will tell you, its not uncommon for one party or the other to present a tough or one-sided agreement, they do this to see what kind of or how much push back they will get from the other party; and it’s assumed that the other party will present a counter offer – hence the term contract negotiation. But if Tenet offered any counter offer to the C.N.A./N.N.O.C. agreement then I can only conclude it was a half hearted counter offer, because the contract heavily favored C.N.A./N.N.O.C., to the point of disadvantaging Tenet’s very own nurses themselves.
For example the C.N.A./N.N.O.C. representatives were given access to the employee list, including personal contact information, of all the RNs at the three hospitals (CyFair, Northwest, and Park Plaza). Keep in mind that prior to this all three hospitals were non-union shops, thus the C.N.A./N.N.O.C. were not yet recognized as a bargaining unit for any of the RNs at these hospitals; so these strangers were given free access to this personal information and RNs discovered this only after they started receiving calls, visits and mail from C.N.A./N.N.O.C. Tenet also sold the rights of the RNs to any non-approved C.N.A./N.N.O.C. messages or information, because they agreed to a clause that required C.N.A./N.N.O.C. approval of any flyer that the hospital management would post regarding the unionizing efforts with their hospitals (keep in mind C.N.A./N.N.O.C. were not yet a recognized bargaining unit at any of these hospitals). C.N.A./N.N.O.C. representatives were given meeting space and permission to have information booths in employee areas; but when a group of Tenet nurses (many of whom were already members of the state’s professional nurses association, the Texas Nurses’ Association) requested the same privilege they were denied by hospital administration. So instead the nurses were expected to, and did run their own information campaign on their own dime and time. These nurses organized a truth-a-thon (photo below) to provide interested nurses with another side of the “union/non-union” story; C.N.A./N.N.O.C. were so fearful that these nurses had decided to provide an alternate voice that C.N.A./N.N.O.C. representatives took photographs of the no- C.N.A. nurses and those nurses that requested information at the truth-a-thon. Which is why I’m always skeptical at unions that whine about the harsh tactics of management when they often engage in the very same tactics that they accuse management.
In the end CyFair nurses voted to accept the union, the margin was very small but of course C.N.A./N.N.O.C. declared an outright victory and a that a new day was dawning for the nurses of Texas, because soon C.N.A./N.N.O.C. would release all RNs in Texas from the shackles of “servitude” and “oppression”. But wait; there was still Northwest and Park Plaza, what happened to the union vote at these two institutions? Well, just as C.N.A./N.N.O.C. came into Houston like thieves in the night on April 14th they formally withdrew their petition and they slunk out of Park Plaza and Northwest, once they realized that the RNs at Northwest and Park Plaza with help from CyFair nurses were not about to abdicate their professional voices without full disclosure. These nurses launched, again on their own time and dime, an information campaign and as luck would have it they got to observe how C.N.A./N.N.O.C. representatives acted and for every pro-union button that was being worn, two no thanks C.N.A. button were being worn as well. The Park Plaza nurses mounted such excellent information campaigning that C.N.A./N.N.O.C. representatives demanded additional time to campaign and of course their request was granted – but even the additional time couldn’t turn the tide. Ironically the C.N.A./N.N.O.C. accused the two Tenet Hospitals with colluding with the NRTW Foundation as to why their organizing effort failed. Let me get this straight Tenet gives C.N.A./N.N.O.C. complete access to employee personnel records, unfettered access to nurses while at work, in the units, break rooms and wherever else nurses gathered in the hospital and denied nurses who opposed the C.N.A./N.N.O.C. message even the opportunity to provide their side of the story, except when those nurses did all the work themselves on their own dime and the C.N.A./N.N.O.C. whines, stomps their feet and cry “FOUL”? This is just one more reason that I oppose unions for nurses, because this is not the kind of behavior I want to see exhibit by nurse professionals.
Where is the Texas media to report the withdrawal? All the while C.N.A./N.N.O.C. was actively organizing the newspapers could barely contain themselves and happily reported on the C.N.A./N.N.O.C. progress; but now that C.N.A./N.N.O.C. have withdrawn there has been nary a peep.
Of course, I know why C.N.A./N.N.O.C. doesn’t want it known that the nurses of Northwest and Park Plaza rejected their overtures; because God forbid should nurses be lead to believe that they can speak for themselves since the C.N.A./N.N.O.C. campaign is based heavily on “nurses are so weak, disenfranchised and oppressed” that only a union can adequately represent them. So when nurses reject the C.N.A./N.N.O.C. either by voting them down as recently happened in Fresno, or decertify as in the San Diego area, or stand-up and don’t even let them get their foot in the door as in Houston then the mythos created by C.N.A./N.N.O.C. is damaged and thus makes their propaganda much less affective.
Centerpoint Hospital RNs vote to take back their professional voice from the AFT.
With little fanfare this past week, nurses from Centerpoint Hospital of Independence, MO held a decertification vote. The results 226 to 78 with 24 opting not to vote at all, and the Nurses United Local 5126 (part of the American Federation of Teachers) were ousted as representatives for the RNs at the hospital. The vote took place over two days (April 23 and 24) last week, and the results were a celebrated outcome to a small core group of professional nurses that had coalesced to further professionalism versus unionism for nurses.
I learned about the nurses of Just Let Us Vote, JLUV, and emailed the contact for JLUV, Jerilyn McDermed. She responded to my email with her telephone number and I called her and we chatted. She gave the “quick and dirty” version of the history of the unionization of Centerpoint and why she chose to launch a decertification effort. Their path to decertification wasn’t an easy one, they were targeted by members of Nurses United Local 5126, labeled the “misinformed minority”, demeaned by some of the more vociferous pro-union nurses on staff, and found little support in the local media to get their side of the story out. Yet, they persevered and after many months of foot-dragging from the union they got the green light for a decertification vote. Of course the union machine spun the story as if they had been the ones instrumental in allowing the nurses the opportunity to have the vote; and in a way that was true since the union had filed numerous complaints with the NLRB that caused the vote delay. So when the union removed their objections the vote was green lighted, but then again if the union hadn’t initially objected the vote would have taken place much, much sooner.
It’s behavior such as this that makes me suspect the true motivations behind the union’s push for the “Employee Free Choice Act”, better known as EFCA. They extol the virtues of having a majority of employees signing cards to bring in union representation, but when the tables are turned and people sign cards to end union representation then the union fights it tooth and nail. So, it’s apparent to folks like me that the union likes to make full use of the process when it serves them, but they don’t want their opponents to have the same opportunities. Maybe this simple fact is why polls show that up to 80% of union members themselves oppose the passage of EFCA. But, back to Centerpoint.
So, when I came across an article in the Independence Examiner about the upcoming vote I wrote a letter to the editor and it was published on March 31st and distributed throughout the hospital by nurses. Jerilyn shared with me that a pro-union nurse had defaced one of the letters that had been posted, and her response was to place a post-it note by the defaced flyer that asked folks not to write on her flyers, since no one wrote or defaced their flyers. Of course, she wasn’t shocked by such churlish behavior since all too often pro-union nurses will engage in such behavior with the full support of their union local – another reason why professional nurse often eschew unionization.
As the date of the vote approached the Kansas City Star did a write up and its lean was so pro-union that was more of a advertisement then a news story, so I was compelled to write a letter to the editor (which can be found at the end of this post) and contact the Reader’s Representative. He was very nice and said he would have the reporter call me, which I’m sure he did but as of the writing of this post the reporter has yet to call me. I had also left a message in his voice mail myself. Additionally, the letter to the editor reader had still not read my letter nearly three days after submission. In the end, the professional nurses of Centerpoint were able to overcome a pro-union local media and a well funded union local from the AFT to get their message out and the nurses responded with an overwhelming vote of 226 to leave the AFT with only 78 voting to remain with the AFT. Stories covering the recent decertification vote can be found at the Kansas City Star here and the Independence Examiner here.
One more victory in a growing movement by professional nurses to decertify from union representation and retake their voice and right to self-representation.
April 9, 2009
The Kansas City Star
Letters
1729 Grand Blvd.
Kansas City, MO 64108
letters@kcstar.com
Re: “Centerpoint nurses await elections on bargaining unit”
Dear Editor:
Your recent article on the upcoming decertification election at Centerpoint leaves your readers with the belief that only management pressured nurses or that all nurses are in favor of the union. This article falls far short of providing your readers with an accurate and fair picture.
Your article failed to mention that it was an action initiated by Centerpoint nurses that prompted the decertification election. Only “pro-union” nurses opinions were quoted and there appeared that no attempt was made to find nurses with divergent opinions. However, perhaps the most egregious omission was the failure to investigate the nurses in favor of leaving the union who’ve also faced harassment and intimidation from union representatives something that isn’t the sole domain of management.
It’s unfortunate that your paper seems to prefer to regurgitate the union story line rather then to report the complete story and let your readers form their own opinions.
Letters not printed
I’ve got a pretty good track record in getting letters to the editor published – if I say so myself. Every now and then I send a letter that I think is particularly important, especially when it is correcting misinformation, doesn’t seem to make the “cut”. When this happens I sometimes decide to post it on my blog, and this is what I’ve done with a copy of the letter to the editor that I sent in response to an Pasadena Star News editorial piece they published on the nursing education and nursing shortage challenge. Though overall the article made a valiant attempt to present solutions, I also found at least one glaring error and many of the same old-same old problems and solutions that the nursing talking heads have been nattering about for almost as long as I’ve been a registered nurse. However, the Pasadena Star News paper letter to the editor person felt that my response was too long to print and after he suggested that I might want to consider editing it down and “tightening” it up I should resend it, which I did. Alas, neither letter has been published to date. So below you’ll find both versions of my letter to the editor the first is the original followed by the much revised and edited down version of the second submission.
September 22, 2008
Letters to the Editor
Pasadena Star News
Pasadena, CA
Re: “Make room for nurses”
Dear Editor:
Your paper’s effort to address the layered and complicated issues surrounding our Nation’s nursing shortage and nursing education dilemma is commendable; but unfortunately like so many well-intentioned individuals and groups before you, your efforts fell short and your editorial also provided erroneous information.
The Associate-prepared RN does not receive a certificate but receives an Associate Degree of Science in Nursing. The three recognized pathways to an RN licensure are as follows the Associate-prepared (often referred to as the two-year degree), the Diploma-nurse (often referred to as the three-year program) and the Bachelor-prepared (often referred to as the four-year degree). All three pathways require that their candidates take the same licensure exam, the N.C.L.E.X.-RN, and once this exam is passed that individual is then eligible for licensure, assuming they meet the state other licensure pre-requisites.
An LVN, though a nurse, is not a RN and not one of the three pathways to an RN licensure. The LVN licensure has its own scope of practice, is a separate educational and licensure pathway, and in California is regulated by its own nursing board. The LVN can be and is recognized as part of the nursing career ladder, and many excellent RNs, nursing leaders and educators have begun their career as either a LVN or LPN, before moving up the career ladder to advance training, degrees and licensure.
Many external factors impact our nursing education pipeline, some of which you noted in your article. However your editorial failed to address issues such as the low student to instructor ratio which is mandated (in some cases as low as 8:1) which often makes colleges and universities hesitant to launch, expand or maintain nursing programs. The high attrition rate that is often found in our nursing schools, contributing factors are due in great part to poorly prepared students specifically in areas of science, math and yes English-language skills and a lottery system that is still being used in many of our community college nursing programs. A study published in 2001/2002 found that key indicators of success in a nursing program were directly linked to the prospective nursing students’ comprehension and at least B grade in Math, Science and English-language, and when you keep in mind that nursing is a science/math focused skill and that the language of medicine/nursing in this country is English these outcomes make sense. Senator Scott sponsored legislation that would have replaced the lottery system as it applied to nursing programs with a system that focused on these key indicators, but unfortunately the final bill was substantially water-down leaving the use of the lottery system up to each individual community college When a nursing class has a high attrition rate then that can translate into empty seats for the remainder of that “student year”. Nursing programs are also plagued by a great deal of “individuality” which often makes transferring from one nursing program to another problematic. Not to mention that the average nursing school educator can make more money as a staff nurse with less overall responsibility than as a teacher.
All these issues place a strain on our nursing pipeline, and while these problems are being addressed, all too often it is being addressed piece-meal with very little county, state or nation-wide coordination. Nursing also needs to find a way to integrate RNs who hold advance degrees that are not in nursing but in related fields into the nursing education pipeline, these nurses could serve to help ameliorate our current educator crisis. Currently, there is a push for nurses to go immediately from the B.S.N. to the M.S.N. and then on to the Ph.D. or Doctorate in Nursing degree in order to fill the nursing educator gap, but one has to wonder if this push which ignores extensive clinical (or real-world) experience for theoretical and didactic may have on the skills of the student they teach. And though “book smarts” are all well and good there is something to be said for the nurse who can translate what they’ve learned from the book into the real-world of bedside nursing.
Though as your editorial so quaintly noted that both Cal State Long Beach and Cal State Fullerton B.S.N. program are a mere six-semesters in length, it doesn’t always translate into six uninterrupted semesters. Many nursing students face roadblocks in taking required courses simply due to the lack of qualified teachers and these roadblocks translate into a delay that could and often does lengthen the time to graduation, and let’s not forget just because one graduates from one of these three pathways does not a RN make, because that graduate must then pass their N.C.L.E.X.-RN exam. Luckily in California our schools maintain a respectable 88% passage rate, which means most of our graduates then are eligible for licensure.
As someone who has written extensively on the issue of the nursing shortage and an outspoken advocate for nursing I have called on a “Flexner-like” study of our nation’s nursing programs. In the early 1900s our Nation’s medical schools and the very structure of medicine received an overhaul of sorts in the form of a nation-wide study that is often referred to as the Flexner-study. This study provided a framework from which all medical schools now design their program around which has allowed for a maximization of available “seats” in medical schools, the facilitation of transfers within and outside school systems all the while maintaining a high level of quality. I think nursing, too, could benefit from a similar review. This does not necessarily mean that I think nursing should be forced to adopt the same study tool, but perhaps nursing could use a top to bottom review from a core group of experts that could then provide recommendations on everything from what the entry-level of nursing should be to how we should structure the complete nursing career ladder, to how to design our nursing programs to maximize the available and often limited seats and so forth.
October 3, 2008
Letters to the Editor
Pasadena Star News
Pasadena, CA
Re: “Make room for nurses”
Dear Editor:
Your paper’s effort to address the layered and complicated issues surrounding our Nation’s nursing shortage and nursing education dilemma is commendable; but unfortunately like so many well-intentioned individuals and groups before you, your efforts fell short and your editorial also provided erroneous information.
Two most noticeable mistakes in your editorial are: the Associate-prepared RN does not receive a certificate but receives an Associate Degree of Science in Nursing. An LVN, though a nurse, is not a RN and not one of the three pathways to an RN licensure. The LVN licensure has its own scope of practice, is a separate educational and licensure pathway, and in California is regulated by its own nursing board. The LVN can be and is recognized as part of the nursing career ladder, and many excellent RNs, nursing leaders and educators have begun their career as either a LVN or LPN, before moving up the career ladder to advance training, degrees and licensure.
Many external factors impact our nursing education pipeline, some of which you noted in your article. However your editorial failed to address issues such as the low student to instructor ratio which is mandated (in some cases as low as 8:1) which often makes colleges and universities hesitant to launch, expand or maintain nursing programs. Many of our nursing schools have a high attrition rate; contributing factors are due in great part to poorly prepared students specifically in areas of science, math and yes English-language skills. Nursing programs are also plagued by a great deal of “individuality” which often makes transferring from one nursing program to another problematic. Not to mention that the average nursing school educator can make more money as a staff nurse. These are just a few of the issues that place a strain on our nursing pipeline, and while these problems are partially addressed, all too often they’re being addressed piece-meal with very little county, state or nation-wide coordination.
The American Nurses Association Does Not Represent the Interest of 2.9 Million Registered Nurses!
This is an open letter from one RN who’s sick and tired of the American Nurses Association (ANA) getting away with propagating the myth that they represent the interests of 2.9 million RNs in this country! Most RNs are not members of the ANA, and in a recently released Annual Report the ANA published that less than 11% of all eligible RNs in the country were members of the ANA or any other similar association/union.
Like so many organizations the ANA is a member organization and thus they can only speak for their members, and yet the ANA allows the media, pundits, elected officials and the public-at-large to believe that they represent the 2.9 million RNs, or the interest of 2.9 million RNs depending on which of their press releases your read.
Nursing is a profession that demands the highest of ethical practices from those who practice this time-honored profession; and in turn organizations that purport to represent nurses should be held to the same high standards, and when organizations such as the ANA promulgates misinformation about the number of RNs that are members they are perpetuating a deception on not only their members but the public as well.
Several years ago when the California Nurses Association (C.N.A.) tried to pass themselves off as the voice of the California RN, I was quick to illustrate in a letter to the editor that they represent just about one-third of California RNs (and most of those RNs were as much members by choice as by being forced to be members via a closed shop agreement). I made clear that the C.N.A. was welcome to represent themselves as a voice or one of the voices of nursing in California, but unless they represented a majority of California RNs they could not be considered “the voice” of the California RN and to their credit to this day they only present themselves as “a voice”. Now the ANA wants to pass itself off as the voice of the American RN and they do so in couched and carefully constructed sound bites to provide the illusion that all 2.9 million RNs are a united voice and the represented body for that voice is the ANA – how patriarchal and chauvinistic of them!
The most recent example of the ANA arrogance is their endorsement of Senator Barack Obama, and by claiming once again that the ANA represents the interests of the nation’s 2.9 million registered nurses. The ANA needs to reissue their press release to accurately reflect the number of nurses that their organization actually represents, and stop perpetuating the lie that all 2.9 million RNs in this country have acquiesced their voice to this one organization.
This does not mean that the ANA hasn’t promoted programs that have benefited the nursing profession as a whole, but then again one could argue every nursing organization regardless of size, focus, or political persuasion has at some point or another promoted positive nursing change. However this does not give the ANA or any other membership organization liberty to pretend to speak for all nurses! ANA membership is not free, and to be a member of the ANA requires that you pay your dues, so until all 2.9 million (or majority) of RNs sign up as members of the ANA this RN will continue to speak out about the myth that the ANA represents the interests of 2.9 million RNs.
Answer me this who died and elected them our spokes-organization?
If you agree please add you name and your home state to this list and share it far and wide.
Geneviève M. Clavreul, RN, Ph.D. – California
The world according to the C.N.A. – “or what you do when the union expects you to check your brain at the door”
If one were to believe the C.N.A. (based on the quote from their official spokesperson) that was written up in the August 12th issue of the Houston Chronicle (read the story here — http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/5940099.html) an eight vote difference is a “majority” and thus an overwhelming endorsement for union representation and anyone that questions this vote is undemocratic. Contrary to the C.N.A. allegations, what the National Right to Work Foundation has (www.nrtw.org) done is file an unfair labor practice allegation against both the C.N.A. and Tenet (you can read the press release here – www.nrtw.org/print/3156). They allege is that the neutrality agreement that was signed between Tenet and the C.N.A. was the first “wrong” action in the C.N.A. attempt to gain a foothold in Texas. In addition, the nurses have alleged that this neutrality agreement was so one-sided it provided the Houston-area Tenet nurses no choice in which union the nurses could join, so in essence the C.N.A. was foisted on them. To make matters worse the so-called neutrality agreement also gagged the managers from speaking or answering questions raised by the nurses, leaving the nurses very little access to information that wasn’t either provided by the C.N.A. or vetted and approved by the C.N.A. – talk about a raw deal. Not to mention the agreement gave the C.N.A. access to the private home addresses and telephone numbers of the nurses without the nurses’ knowledge or permission. It’s also my understanding that a neutrality agreement is generally not introduced or signed until the prospective union can demonstrate that there’s an interest expressed by the nurses to be represented by that union, which I understand never happened in this case.
Something tells me that if the roles were reversed the C.N.A. would have been screaming “bloody murder” and Congressman Henry “I’ve never met a congressional hearing I didn’t like” Waxman would have been chairing hearings on such outlandish behavior. So the nurses have had to rely on themselves and a network of management/union-savvy nurses from around the country to get answers and information to then share among themselves. But then again we are talking about the world according to the union, so we shouldn’t expect things to appear logical. I feel confident in making such a bold statement because a couple of months back a Fresno-area hospital rejected the C.N.A. for the second time by a 125 vote margin, and guess what the C.N.A. has contested the outcome. How come the C.N.A. cries undemocratic to question a neutrality agreement that results in an eight-vote margin win for the union, but when another hospital’s nurses vote to stay union-free this is worthy of being contested by the C.N.A., which that claims that all it wants to do is let the nurses have a voice?
I guess it just another example of a union talking the talk but not walking the walk – why am I not surprised.
