A New National Union for ANA?

Seems to me like the whole ANA mindset and the idea of an effective union are not compatable. To be an effective labor union for nurses, an organization has to first and foremost represent the interests of staff nurses, which will never be identical with the interest of management and academic nurses. And the orgnization has to truly understand and actualize the common interest of nurses and patients - which, again are not compatable with the interest of hospitals and insurers etc.

We see this play out in the ANA refusal to back real ratios, but allying itself with the hospitals to promote sham legislation to undermine ratio laws. Fortunately, when we went through the ratio fight in California, the ANA is pretty much non-existant here. But in other states, they have played a major role in the anti-ratio forces - Illinois, Ohio and Massachusetts, just to name a few.

In the breakup of UAN, we see the beginning of the end for ANA as a credible force. It will be superseded by a real nurses organization that knows how to fight for the interests of the bedside nurse. How that organization will form is not yet clear, but I suspect it will happen in the rather near future.