Historic Pact Creates RN "SuperUnion" -- 150,000 Nurses Strong

If anyone can move mountains to build a more humane healthcare system and strengthen protections for patients in the face of the avarice and plunder that so often characterizes the healthcare industry in America, it is registered nurses.

And the latest news for patients, and nurses, is especially promising.

Three of the nation's premiere organizations of direct care RNs have come together to form a new, powerful national nurses' union that will be the front line of confronting the healthcare industry, advancing the interests of patients, and campaigning for guaranteed healthcare reform for all.

The new union unifies the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, United American Nurses, and the Massachusetts Nurses Association into a 150,000-member association -- making it the largest RN union in U.S. history.

It's about time. With the economic crisis getting worse by the day:

• Our healthcare system is rapidly moving from turmoil to terminal (the New York Times this week described the latest "advance" for uninsured young adults -- "do it yourself medical care.").
• Hospital corporations and other healthcare industry employers are squeezing nurses and caregivers with layoffs, wage freezes and cuts, reductions in health coverage and pensions, speed up, job outsourcing, and other attacks long seen in other sectors of the economy.
• RNs face an increasingly relentless encroachment on their ability to advocate for patients, which is the last line of defense against insurance claims adjustors and hospital managers eager to sacrifice patient standards for their bottom lines.

These trials pose a daunting challenge to America's nurses, as well as patients.

But some of our obstacles come from within our own ranks. The majority of RNs, unlike professional teachers, fire fighters, or police officers are largely non-union, and splintered into a variety of organizations, including a number of non-RN unions.

Those divisions have not served RNs or patients well. They are a critical weakness which has undermined the ability of RNs to more effectively organize to improve standards for themselves, to fight for patients, and to win real, not insurance-based, healthcare reform.

To be sure, CNA/NNOC and other direct care RN-led unions have won dramatic achievements, such as the RN-to-patient ratios we pioneered in California.

But RNs across the U.S. have long yearned for a powerful national movement to serve as a voice and an advocate for all RNs. The new national union, which will be called United American Nurses-National Nurses Organizing Committee, UAN-NNOC (AFL-CIO) is a giant step forward to that goal.

In a founding statement February 18, our new union has voiced a joint commitment and common principles to:

• organize all non-union direct care RNs,
• establish a stronger voice to promote RN rights, safe RN practice, including RN-to-patient ratios under the principle that safe staffing saves lives,
• promote healthcare justice
• provide a vehicle for solidarity with sister nurse and allied organizations around the world.

It's an exciting moment, and an opportunity.

Comments

[RightsGuy]

INSURANCE EXECUTIVES ANNUAL COMPENSATION (2006 and 2007 figures):

• Ronald A. Williams, Chair/ CEO, Aetna Inc., $23,045,834
• H. Edward Hanway, Chair/ CEO, Cigna Corp, $30.16 million
• David B. Snow, Jr, Chair/ CEO, Medco Health, $21.76 million
• Michael B. MCallister, CEO, Humana Inc, $20.06 million
• Stephen J. Hemsley, CEO, UnitedHealth Group, $13,164,529
• Angela F. Braly, President/ CEO, Wellpoint, $9,094,771
• Dale B. Wolf, CEO, Coventry Health Care, $20.86 million
• Jay M. Gellert, President/ CEO, Health Net, $16.65 million
• William C. Van Faasen, Chairman, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3 million plus $16.4 million in retirement benefits
• Charlie Baker, President/ CEO, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, $1.5 million
• James Roosevelt, Jr., CEO, Tufts Associated Health Plans, $1.3 million
• Cleve L. Killingsworth, President/CEO Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, $3.6 million
• Raymond McCaskey, CEO, Health Care Service Corp (Blue Cross Blue Shield), $10.3 million
• Daniel P. McCartney, CEO, Healthcare Services Group, Inc, $ 1,061,513
• Daniel Loepp, CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, $1,657,555
• Todd S. Farha, CEO, WellCare Health Plans, $5,270,825
• Michael F. Neidorff, CEO, Centene Corp, $8,750,751
• Daniel Loepp, CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, $1,657,555
• Todd S. Farha, CEO, WellCare Health Plans, $5,270,825
• Michael F. Neidorff, CEO, Centene Corp, $8,750,751

NON-PROFIT, SINGLE-PAYER IS THE OPTION.

http://www.insurancecompanyrules.org/learn_more/the_roster/

[RightsGuy]

Martin Luther King said, "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane."

Congressman John Conyers has introduced HR 676, The United States National Health Insurance Act, to ensure that every American, regardless of income, employment status, or race, has access to quality, affordable health care services.

To end the inhumanity of our failed healthcare insurance system, where profits are more important than patients’ health, ask your Representatives to support John Conyer's HR 676 Bill.

HEALTHCARE SHOULD BE A RIGHT, NOT A BUSINESS.

For more information on HR 676, see:
http://www.pnhp.org/publications/the_national_health_insurance_bill_hr_676.php

[LindaWarnke]

Please don't forget about LPN's, LVN's, etc! Most of the focus on nursing issues is on the RN, but there are a lot of us "lesser degree'd" nurses out here, too. And many of us have years of hands-on experience, and can bring that to the table as well.
One of the biggest obstacles I have noticed is that nurses, as a rule, are taken advantage of by administrations that use our dedication to our patients against us. For example, you may have a nurse who is being forced to work a double-shift. Maybe that nurse is tired, whatever, and really doesn't feel up to doing that. Well, admin will threaten that nurse with patient abandonment if they refuse to stay. Several states have passed laws against mandatory overtime, but administrations know there are many ways around that.
We need to have regulations that hold employers accountable for staffing practices that use mandatory overtime as a staffing tool. Simply having the laws on paper doesn't help when employers routinely find ways around them.

[RN4MERCY]

For too long, we've witnessed the harsh and devastating effects of corporate political domination of our health care system on our patients. UAN/NNOC/MNA RNs are a credible, powerful force to be reckoned with, and as professional and patient advocates we're saying "enough" to the commodification, exploitation, and fragmentation of our work. This national RN "superunion" is without peer among other unions who purport to represent RNs!

What I see here is the vanguard of a tremendous social movement, sustained by a firm belief in creating a single-payer healthcare system that embodies justice and egalitarian values. Together our efforts can and will bring about long-term fundamental social change. All direct care RNs should organize with UAN/NNOC/MNA RNs, and join us in taking our advocacy from the bedside to the legislature on behalf of our patients. It's imperative that we mobilize as social and political advocates to combat the denial of human dignity inherent in our shameful and immoral for-profit health care system.

[Jan R N]

Unlike the teachers, firefighters, police and other public servants RNs have historically failed to create a strong unified voice as a profession. The current disasterous state of health care in the US--the result of decades of failed attempt to win single-payer health care could have been avoided if health care reformers had benefitted from the existence of a strong, unified movement of RNs and patients. I believe that the formation of UAN-NNOC represents a watershed event in the process of finally building that movement.

[ChicoDavidRN]

This is an exciting development. The point that can't be emphasized enough is that this union will have a real commitment to real ehalthcare reform - ie, single payer - an ideal to which many unions pay lip service, but only a few will really stand up for. It has the potential to change the landscape in the health care debate, not to mention organizing a lot of nurses.