The Nurse Unchained
One nurse’s unabashed opinion on all things nursing.

Nurses throughout California either have already received or will be receiving a flyer from the C.N.A. that, in this RN’s opinion, as usual has more misstatements and lies than truth.  Today, I received a copy of their flyer “Why is CEO Meg Whitman at War with California Nurses?”  Of course, in true C.N.A. style this statement is more fiction than truth, since Whitman is not at war with California nurses, but the C.N.A., which represents less than 80,000 of California’s nearly 400,000 RNs threw the first punch and is peeved because Whitman refuses to kowtow to them.  Instead she’s chosen to engage all of California’s RNs in an open and free manner letting the RN decide for herself/himself.

Which brings me to the other misrepresentations and lies that the leadership of C.N.A., has decided to hurl at me, simply because I refuse to allow the C.N.A. to speak for me and because I make it clear at every opportunity that the C.N.A. can only speak for their members and not for every nurse in California.  So in return the leadership of C.N.A. placed my picture on their recent attack piece.  Of course this vile practice is commonplace when it comes to the leadership of C.N.A., but their false statements will not silence me, and as I’ve done before I will address their attack piece with the facts.

First, they state that I’m Whitman’s “Nurse Advisor”, handpicked by Whitman.  Well this is news to me, since though I’ve been happy to answer questions from members of the Whitman team as well as make suggestions this is something I’m happy to do for any person, candidate, politician, nurse, citizen, etc.  Based on the leadership of the C.N.A.’s logic this would make me Senator Dianne Feinstein’s “nurse advisor” as well since I often meet with her staff or her when I travel to DC to participate in our wonderful democracy.

Second, yes I’m a former Director of Nursing, as I’m a former nurse educator, head nurse and more importantly a former NICU/PICU nurse.  But of course the leadership of the C.N.A. loves to stir the pot and prefers to diminish my qualifications as a bedside nurse because as we all know management is inherently evil – I wonder if Deborah Burger and her co-presidents of the C.N.A./N.N.U. know that they are also members of this elite group, since they are after all part of management as is Rose Ann DeMoro.

Third, I never endorsed Schwarzenegger’s bid to “rollback” the ratio law since he never asked the ratio law to be rolled back, simple to delay the implementation of phase two.  What I advocated, which was the same message the Schwarzenegger attempted to communicate, was that California should hold off implementing the Phase II of the ratio until we had studied the impact of Phase I.  Considering that we had one side claiming gloom and doom because of the ratio and the other side claiming that all of nursing ills had somehow been cured because of the ratio I thought it made sense to see what the studies bore out.  And as we were to learn most of the studies have shown mixed results, and don’t even get me started on Aiken’s apples vs. oranges study that was published claiming that if only New Jersey and New York had the same ratio law a percentage of patients would have survived.  I wonder why she didn’t simply compare a set of California hospitals pre and post ratio law?  I think those results would have been much more interesting and a better indicator on the impact of the law.

Fourth, I never campaigned against nurses, just because the leadership of the C.N.A. didn’t like the fact that there were nurses that didn’t cleave to their party line doesn’t mean we campaigned against nurses.  It simply means we were exercising our constitutional guaranteed rights, just as the C.N.A.

Fifth, worked as a consultant for the hospital industry on restructuring and downsizing, yes and I also worked with the hospital industry on such things as developing acuity systems, recruitment and retention of nurses and other hospital/nursing issues.  Restructuring and downsizing aren’t always bad things, if restructuring allows the nursing department and its team to become better managers so that they are more responsive and supportive of the nursing team –this is a good thing, and I would hardly call downsizing the registry pool to zero and replacing those slots with all permanent staff nurses a bad thing since every hospital’s goal should be to have little to no reliance of registry/travel nurses.

Sixth, not sure why the C.N.A. thinks I’ve travelled around the U.S. fighting RN ratios because I haven’t, I ‘ve exercised my right of freedom of speech to write letters to the editor when the issue of nurse/patient ratios have come up.  Of course when I’ve been physically up to travelling to DC I’m sure I’ve shared with my elected officials my opinions on the cookie-cutter ratio versus the acuity system.

However, the biggest misstatement/lie of the leadership of the C.N.A. comes near the end of their presentation.  They present the following, labeling it “in her own words”.  “Forced overtime is one way for hospitals to work around staffing shortfalls”. – Working Nurse magazine, Feb. 5, 2007.  What they fail to do, which is yet another example of how the leadership of the C.N.A. chooses to spread it misinformation and lies about those they see as threats to their mission, is to provide to the reader/recipient the whole sentence, let alone the whole quote from my Feb. 5, 2007 column entitled “Mandatory Overtime?” (the whole article can be found at http://www.solutionsoutsidethebox.net/2007-From-the-Floor-Archive.php).  The actual and whole quote is as follows “Forced overtime is one way for hospitals to work around shortfalls, which probably happens all too often.  The constant use of overtime may be symptomatic of substandard management.  An extremely capable Chief Nursing Officer (CNO), Director of Nursing (DON), and even charge nurse does not need to rely upon a continuous use of overtime because where there is good and solid nursing management, you’ll find happy nurses, and as a rule, a complete nursing staff.  Therefore, there will be less reliance on registry and overtime to compensate for the staffing shortfalls.” Of course providing the sentence in its entirety or the full quote wouldn’t have served the leadership of the C.N.A.’s purpose, which was of course to paint me as some kind of hospital’s hatchet woman, but as those who know me can attest I’m no man’s (woman’s) hatchet person – which is why I think the C.N.A. leadership fears me as they do.

And finally my letter to the editor to the Boston Globe which I wrote in response to an editorial by Suzanne Gordon (which can be found here http://www.solutionsoutsidethebox.net/Nursing.php).  In my letter, which the Globe titled “California’s experience raises questions”, I shared my first hand experience and concerns about California’s nurse/patient ratio law.  I did so because as a NICU/PICU nurse I never treated my patients with cookie-cutter nursing care and I don’t believe that the nurse/patient ratio law’s cookie-cutter approach is in the best interest of our patients or of the nursing team.  Many RNs and I support the acuity system, which allows the nursing team to assess the patient, the illness, its severity and complexity of treatment and then match that with a nurse’s skill sets.  I prefer this because I firmly believe that as nurses we treat patients not numbers.

Of course its my personal belief that the main reason the leadership of the C.N.A. attacked Whitman, even before she received the Republican nomination was because they had already decided to support Jerry Brown and the fight for the Governor’s office would go much easier if Brown had to face Steve Poizner, so they pulled out all the stops to help defeat Whitman in the primary – but things didn’t go their way and so like petulant children they’ve decided to throw mud and vile accusations at nurses who dare support Whitman.  But I won’t support Brown because I haven’t forgotten Project Iatrogenesis also known as SB 666.  For my readers who may not remember, or don’t know what SB 666 entailed (attached is some background).  But to make a long story short, Project Iatrogenesis which was a key component of SB 666 and the brainchild of then Gov. Brown and carried by then State Senator Watson, would’ve allowed for a nurses aides to accumulate a number of hours at the bedside and with no additional educational requirements take a test and if passed become a LVN, a LVN could accumulate a number of hours at the bedside and with no additional educational requirements take a test and if passed become a RN, and so forth following this same path a RN could even become a physician.  The leadership of the C.N.A. may have forgotten about this little episode under then Governor Brown, but this RN hasn’t.

The leadership of the C.N.A. appears happy to provide its nursing membership, the media and public at large with information that at best are twisted to fit a message, ask yourself this if this nursing organization is willing to provide false and misleading information to the public in order to advance its cause, what stops one of its RN members from doing the same to a patient’s medical record or during report?  There’s a French proverb “qui vole un œuf vole un bœuf”, loosely translated it means, “if one can steal and egg, one can steal a cow”.

SB 666

Several days ago, Sherry Bebitch-Jeffe was quoted in an AP release.  Her quote was in reference to the ongoing push and pull between the Whitman Campaign and the California Nurses Association (C.N.A.).  She posited the following,  “While it’s common for Republican candidates to attack public employee unions, she said the public generally has goodwill toward nurses and does not equate their union with “big labor.” She went on to state “I would not have singled out the nurses association, even if they were making fun of me”.   Of course this is the same Bebitch-Jeffe that was adamant that the recall of Gray Davis would fail, so sure was she of her prediction that she made a bet with me that this would be the outcome and the loser would buy the winner dinner.  I’m still waiting on her to make good on her debt.

As a nurse I admire Whitman for defending her campaign and herself from the C.N.A.’s baseless attacks.  Unlike the C.N.A. nurses Whitman has been the professional while C.N.A. nurses have acted like spoiled children throwing tantrums.  The “march on the Whitman’s private home in Atherton” being the most recent tantrum.  I’m all for the freedom to demonstrate but we also need to respect certain social boundaries and one of these boundaries has been an individuals’ home.  Of course this seems to mean nothing to members of the C.N.A.  If they wanted to demonstrate they could’ve chosen the Whitman campaign headquarters or event; instead they chose to disrupt the serenity of an entire community, violating not only Whitman’s peace and tranquility but also that of all her neighbors in her Atherton community.  One would think nurses who take an oath to advocate for some of our communities most vulnerable and fragile members would at least respect some personal boundaries, but not the C.N.A. they have now joined the ranks of such disreputable groups as the Phelps/Westboro Baptist Church and if you don’t know who these folks are just head over to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church).

I think Bebitch-Jeffe is dead wrong to think and publically state that Whitman should do nothing when groups try to bully her.  The C.N.A. threw the first salvo, long before Whitman was even the Republican candidate for Governor.  They did this not so much because of Whitman’s stance, but because their candidate of choice stands a very good chance of losing to Whitman in the General Election; which is why they tried to influence the Republican Primary in hopes that Poizner would win the nomination and failing that the C.N.A. has decided to pull out all the stops.  This strategy could very well back fire on the members of the C.N.A. because even though nurses are held in high regards by the public at large this is due mainly to the public’s vision that nurses behave in a more “ethical” behavior than many of us regular folks.  There are limits to what kind of “bad” behavior the public will tolerate even from nurses.  To date Whitman has appeared to have taken the high road, while the C.N.A. and many of its members have chosen to take the low road.

In this nurse’s opinion the California Nurses Association (C.N.A.) membership hit an all time low this afternoon in Atherton, California.  You may wonder what could be worse than threatening opposition nurses, their children, and pets, or stalking opposition nurses, showing up at their relatives homes and calling family members at all hours of the night and day under the pretext of “convincing” the recalcitrant nurse that the C.N.A. is a great organization to join is low  — you weren’t in Atherton.  Today, low behavior was when hundreds of C.N.A. members and supporters descended on this quiet neighborhood so they could hold a demonstration at the private residence of California gubernatorial candidate, Meg Whitman.

Of course this demonstration was accompanied by all the usual hyperbole and misrepresentations that are part of the C.N.A.’s usual arsenal.  But to come to a person’s private home is truly above the pale. I’m sure Ms. DeMoro, Nurse Burger and company wouldn’t appreciate say the S.E.I.U. coming to their private homes and demonstrating to illustrate how the C.N.A. has engaged in raiding their nursing unions.  But common decency, and socially appropriate behavior seems to be lacking in the C.N.A. leadership DNA.

But what this nurse liked best was that in the C.N.A.’s attempt to garner media attention a nurse delivered a letter to Ms. Whitman by placing said letter in Whitman’s residential mailbox. In doing so this nurse may have engaged in a federal offense.  What federal offense, why the law that states only authorized letter carriers may insert mail into a residential mailbox.  Oh my!  The rule making and rule toting C.N.A. broke a rule themselves – color me surprised! …. More to come.

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.

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/

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.

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.

For the past year or so the National Nurses Organizing Committee (N.N.O.C.), a spin-off of the California Nurses Association (C.N.A.) has been aggressively trying to recruit and add nurses from across the country to their union.  At present N.N.O.C. has Texas-area nurses in their sights and they are currently in Houston (under a neutrality agreement) trying to recruit nurses from three Tenet-owned, Houston-area hospitals; the three hospitals are: Cy-Fair, Houston-Northwest, and Park-Plaza.

When I learned of the N.N.O.C. activities in these hospitals I reached out to some of my contacts in Houston as well as at least one of the nurses who had been identified as leading a nurse-driven opposition to the unionization attempt.  Several conversations and emails later my daughters and I found ourselves taking a short trip to Houston and meeting with the various nurses from all three hospitals.  Even though I had received a great deal of background information from these nurses prior to arriving in Houston the sheer scope of the nurses’ abandonment and betrayal by their employer only became clear after I read the Tenet/C.N.A.-N.N.O.C. neutrality agreement and listened to the personal stories of the RNs that I met during my stay.

I thought how odd that a neutrality agreement would be signed even before the union presented any authorization cards showing that there was an interest from the nurses to call for a vote.  Neutrality agreements are often controversial, but in short a well-written one (i.e. one that favors the union at the expense of employer rights) can make unionizing efforts much easier for the union and its representative.  The Tenet/C.N.A.-N.N.O.C. agreement is heavily weighted in favor of the union, even going so far as requiring that the hospital have any of its opposition information which was to be neutral-language based preapproved by the C.N.A./N.N.O.C before it could be distributed; and the part that I thought even more interesting was the part where the hospital would provide the union with the names of “eligible” RNs personal contact information.  The nurses didn’t even know their private, confidential contact information had been provided to this third party until nurses began receiving calls at home from union representatives; it was only after numerous complaints from nurses that the nurses were given an opportunity to opt-out but of course by then the union already had the complete list.  One nurse shared that she discovered her contact information had been released to the union, without her knowledge, when union representatives contacted her at home and used her given name not the “nickname” that she normally goes by even at work.

The nurses that strongly opposed the union quickly formed two ad-hoc groups, UB-144 and Informed RN (http://informedrn.googlepages.com/) to reach out and provide an alternative source of information then the one being provided by C.N.A./N.N.O.C.   Though one cannot necessarily blame the C.N.A./N.N.O.C. for drafting a contract that favors them and their cause so heavily, I wonder why the administration at Tenet was so willing to pretty much just roll over and take it.  The first rule of contract negotiation is to make the tough demands up front and then negotiate, negotiate, negotiate.  But there is little give and take in this agreement since it binds Tenet in such a way they have pretty much left the nurses that want non-union information out in the cold with no support from any Tenet official.  However, these nurses showing a great deal of initiative have reached out and garnered answers and support from other nurses in Texas and across this nation – because of the little known fact that nursing unions and most of the main-stream media fail to clarify is that nursing unions do not represent the voice of nurses, since most nurses (either 89% or 80% depending on which statistic you pick) choose to speak with their own voice – not a union voice.

However, what concerns this nurse and citizen most is what, in my opinion, is a very undemocratic and almost draconian tact that the C.N.A./N.N.O.C has demanded of the three Tenet hospitals.  For example C.N.A./N.N.O.C. can and does get meeting space at all three of these hospital – this is fair; but when Tenet-nurses wanted to get their “we are professionals and don’t need a union to represent us” message out the C.N.A./N.N.O.C. demanded that the hospital refuse a room to these nurses.  Even though these nurses were doing everything on their own time and dime and the only thing they asked for was the same courtesy that C.N.A./N.N.O.C. had demanded – a room to meet in.  The C.N.A./N.N.O.C. demanded and got a confidential employee list with the private home contact information of all the eligible RNs; when the nurses of Informed RN asked for the same courtesy they were denied access to the list.  So next time when the C.N.A./N.N.O.C. (or any union for that matter) pontificates about democracy and rages against special interest groups – remember the above example because if C.N.A./N.N.O.C. was all about informing and empowering nurses then they wouldn’t fear a grass-action group such as Informed RN.  But of course the C.N.A./N.N.O.C. does fear such groups because groups such as Informed RN are all about empowering RNs to be informed and to take action on what they know – all without having to pay dues to the union machine.  To me how C.N.A./N.N.O.C. has dealt with the Houston RNs, coupled with the language that they crafted for a California Assembly Bill 1201 (thankfully killed in committee) shows what their union leadership really think of nurses.

Meanwhile, I hear that these buttons (see below) are so popular that Informed RN can hardly make enough to meet with the demands.  Way to go Informed RN!

A short while ago I was invited by some nurses from Houston, Texas to pay them a visit. Since my daughters and I had been discussing taking a short vacation for some time the invitation provided us with an opportunity to take a road trip to Texas. I let the nurses in Houston know that I’d be happy to pay them a visit and chat with them about their experiences with the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee. Which is why after just a few days in Houston, my daughters and I found us in Austin having lunch at the Sheraton Hotel and under the watchful eye of C.N.A./N.N.O.C. officials. We had personal business to attend to in Austin, and since the C.N.A./N.N.O.C. has planned a strategy session with HCA nurses to discuss “unionizing” I thought it would be a perfect opportunity for me to observe them in action, so to speak.
As I walked down the hallway between the conference rooms and the restaurant where my daughters waited for me, a C.NA. representative recognized me and quickly left the meeting room so he could follow me. And follow me he did, stopping short of the restaurant entrance where he then stood for 10 – 15 minutes, in plain sight, observing us as we ordered our meal and while he busily spoke to someone on his cell or text messaged. A little while later he motioned for someone to join him and appear to direct him to continue the vigil while he went back upstairs. After finishing our lunch we made plans to complete our errand and found it most amusing to see that we were still being “watched”; oh to have such power.
Which brings me to my point of hubris. Why the officials of the C.N.A./N.N.O.C. would think that I would plan to disrupt their activities or meetings is interesting – but of course they would think this is how people behave since they think nothing of disrupting a meeting, stalking or harassing those they perceive as “threats” or even raiding other unions – so of course they would believe this behavior to be the norm and thus everyone else would exhibit the same deplorable behavior. Which is why they made a point of observing and stalking my daughters and I while we were having our lunch and then made sure we were “observed” during our entire stay at the hotel. If they had only come up and introduced themselves perhaps they would have learned my intent and thus not wasted their time on looking the fool.
Nonetheless when I shared this experience with my fellow nurses from Texas and California everyone had a good laugh at the actions of the C.N.A. and commented on how this made for a memorable experience for this Texas road-trip. Of course one would think that the C.N.A./N.N.O.C. exercise in hubris would end there, but have no fear the day after my return I received an email from an N.N.O.C. nurse from Tennessee. Nurse Chapman chose to send me an email regarding a very popular article I wrote, “To Unionize or Not to Unionize, that is the Question?” Apparently he was under the impression that he was my editor or significant other because he attempted to “deconstruct” my article throwing around such words as nurses need strong union representation (just see what such strong unionization has wrought the nurses of Great Britain, Australia and Canada), research and studies have shown. . . without providing a single citation for his conclusions, and my favorite “I request that you change the title of your article. . ”. Of course my response to him was NO, I would not change the title of my article, as I like it very much the way it is now. I also reminded him that this article, as all my articles and blog postings reflect my opinion and experience and thus not subject to his approval. Of course he chose to ignore the underpinnings of all my articles which that my readers should always do their due diligence, which by the tone and context of his letter I think he preferred that nurses just remain as sheep and that they should follow his piped piper. “N.N.O.C.”.
Oh the hubris of the C.N.A. and their operatives to think that they can intimidate nurses so easily, and me in particular.