[cargal]

http://allnurses.com/news/jump.cgi?ID=1037
All Pa nurses, and we know there is lots of them here: time to contact your local and state legislator and request that they support this measure. This is one example when we need to be able to print off a page and take it to work to pass out to all nurses so that they be encouraged to write en mass!
This is from the front page of allnurses.com

[NRSKarenRN]

Here is link from Seiu 1199P site:

http://www.seiu1199p.org/pages/safestaffing.html

[-jt]

<On May 3, 2000, Senator Allyson Schwartz along with Senators Costa, Hughes and Tartaglione of the Pennsylvania State Senate introduced S.B. 1441, a bill that addresses nurse staffing levels and quality of care in health care facilities across the State. This landmark legislation, which 1199P/SEIU helped draft, would ensure safe staffing levels in all Pennsylvania hospitals by setting specific, enforceable staffing standards.>

While some nurses wont join nurses unions because they say they "dont believe in unions" or that "nurses unionizing is not a professional thing to do", and some dont even join their own professional state nursing assoc, it's the UNIONIZED nurses and state nursing assoc members - unionized and not - who are writing the nursing practice & pt safety laws that all patients & working nurses in their states will benefit from.

Mandatory OT is now illegal in 6 states - with more on the way. That didnt happen by itself. That happened because of the hard fight for it by nurses unions, state nurses assoc, & their members. So all those RNs who dont "believe" in us and wont do anything to help make laws like these happen, are sure going to have a lot to thank us union nurses and state nursing assoc members for by the time we're finished!

As they say in NY: "Ya gotta be in it tuh win it"

[oramar]

Pennsylvania is such a conservative state. It is a miracle that something like this would come along. I am thrilled that PASNAP has contributed to it. Those people are my heros. Perhaps all my calls and letters to Ralph Kieser my local state rep. have helped. Well not time to rest now.