Nurses at Scripps Encinitas Hospital in San Diego County California have filed a petition to Decertify the California Nurses Association.
The California Nurses Association have made several unsuccessful attempts to strike at the hospital and have failed to garner enough support among staff nurses.
A copy of the petition is available from the National Labor Relations Board or download the petition now at http://www.stopunions.com
CA RNs----does anyone know if the RN to patient ratio in CA med-surg units is now 1:5, or is it still 1:6? When will the new mandate go into effect if it's still 1:6?
I imagine many hospitals are voluntarily implementing the new 1:5 ratio.
Sherwood, I am convinced that you are either middle management or upper management, although you vigorously deny it. You tend to speak the same "management-speak" they all do.
Come on now Stevie Ray. You're a professional. We may have different opinions but we all have RN behind our name. Let's respect that.
Good for the nurses at Scripps Encinitas who are willing to speak out and take their hospital back. And good for Sherwood for his support.
You're getting ready to see and hear a lot more of it. Professional nurses all over this state are tired of the negative image of nursing portrayed publicly by the CNA and more and more nurses will be thinking about filing for decertification in the future.
You can be sure that Sherwood is a staff nurse and a darn good one at that! He doesn't speak like management. He speaks like a nurse who can communicate effectively with management. He speaks like a professional nurse with a mind of his own. How refreshing!
Specializes in Cardiac Critical Care, Trauma, Neuro..
Sherwood, I am convinced that you are either middle management or upper management, although you vigorously deny it. You tend to speak the same "management-speak" they all do.
Wow! Thank you, I take that as a compliment. I am a staff nurse, full time ICU/CCU and I am a Trauma Clinician. I punch a clock and my full time job is patient care everyday, all day. I am occasionally asked to teach. I precept new nurses and help orient new hires. I have NEVER been management.
With a little research you can find this out very easily, I lead a successfull campaign to beat the CNA at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana, California. I stood side by side with union organizers, they passed their literature, I passed out mine. I spoke to my collegues, they spoke to my colleagues. I asked everyone to think carefully about what unionizing means. They listened and we beat the CNA! Of course I had a hospital full of college educated nurses behind me so I cannot take all the credit.
Nurses are college educated healthcare professionals. Why would it surprise you that I as a nurse can communicate, with my own voice and my own words? All nurses do it everyday. Just listen to them, I do.
Specializes in Cardiac Critical Care, Trauma, Neuro..
Come on now Stevie Ray. You're a professional. We may have different opinions but we all have RN behind our name. Let's respect that.
Good for the nurses at Scripps Encinitas who are willing to speak out and take their hospital back. And good for Sherwood for his support.
You're getting ready to see and hear a lot more of it. Professional nurses all over this state are tired of the negative image of nursing portrayed publicly by the CNA and more and more nurses will be thinking about filing for decertification in the future.
You can be sure that Sherwood is a staff nurse and a darn good one at that! He doesn't speak like management. He speaks like a nurse who can communicate effectively with management. He speaks like a professional nurse with a mind of his own. How refreshing!
Thank you! When I buy Tim a sasparilla, may I buy one for you too?
This was posted on a very popular guysnamelist.com site.
Don't think they aren't recruiting elsewhere....please notice the politcal statements used (see items in bold).
Labor Union Organizer
Date: 2005-06-29, 2:05PM EDT
Organizers are being hired around the country to bring union protection to Registered Nurses (RN) and justice to the healthcare system.
The National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) /California Nurses Association (CNA) are hiring organizers in Southern states and other areas around the country. CNA has won the best registered nurse contracts in the nation, with the protections of a pension plan; retiree health benefits; fair scheduling and a powerful voice for safe staffing. NNOC/CNA are leading the movement for nurse power to transform the healthcare system in the United States.
For far too long, the healthcare industry has ignored the needs of nurses and patients, focusing instead on generating wealth for corporate investors. During their work lives, nurses at non-union hospitals are at the beck and call of the hospital 24 hours a day. At non-union hospitals, nurses have been forced to work mandatory overtime, even when they are so exhausted that patient care could suffer. When nurses from many non-union hospitals face retirement years, there is no pension plan. After nurses spend their entire work lives caring for others, when they retire from non-union hospitals, nurses are unable to afford adequate medical care themselves.
Position: Union Organizer, or Lead Organizer, or Organizer in Training
As a union organizer you would help nurses develop the organizing committee at a hospital, and help nurses win their representation election in the face of an intense anti-union employer campaign. As a lead organizer, you would be responsible for helping to coordinate the work of organizers and provide assistance for the organizers in training. As an organizer in training, you will learn to play an effective role in a union organizing campaign. The RN workforce is 95% women and depending on the facility, there are many nurses of color.
Qualifications:
We are currently hiring experienced activists with all levels of experience. A demonstrated commitment to social justice work is required. Experience in women's issues is also a plus.
Organizers have preferably had experience organizing for elections, especially health care workers.
Lead organizers should have experience running large organizing campaigns for NLRB elections. Lead organizers should have demonstrated success at providing direction and leadership to other organizers.
Organizers in training should have a willingness to work hard and a commitment to learning union organizing.
In your cover letter please indicate if you have the ability to travel, geographic preferences and restrictions. Please email résumé and cover letter today to:
XXXXXXXXXXXX, Executive Director
Email Preferred: XXXXXXXXXXXX
For more information, please check out our award-winning web-site www.XXXX
NNOC/CNA are committed to Equal Opportunity, and considering applicants of all ages, races, sexual orientations, national origins, ethnicities, and religions. We urge people of color and women, experienced organizers and labor representatives of all backgrounds, to apply.
I think it's interesting that you would choose to place a recruitment letter for the union on a thread about decertifying the union.
They are agressively trying to organize many RNs.
I would urge anyone to look into what CNA has actually negotiated for most of the RNs they represent. Many of the CNA contracts DO NOT have retiree health or "pension". Most of the "union" hospitals that CNA represents that have a pension today already had one before CNA got there. CNA promised the RNs at St Joseph Eureka that they would have a pension and they DO NOT. They have a defined contribution plan and they had to wait 18 months longer to get it than their sister hospitals because of CNA. Not to mention that they now have to pay 2% of their pay to get what they would have had anyway...it's so sad that so many were fooled.
This is why we are now seeing so many decertification petitions. Nurses have awakened to the truth. CNA just wants their money!!!! It's not worth the termoil in the workplace between peers, it's not worth the STRIKES, it's not worth the $100/month! it's not worth being associated with screaming, sign carrying unprofessional people!
Best wishes to Scripps Encinitas and St Vincent Hospitals!!!!!!!!!!!!! :balloons:
I think it is appalling that unions claim to accomplish so much more than they actually do.
I believe that RNs are smarter than union organizers. They will do their own homework and draw their own conclusions.
The California Nurses Association has reached a landmark contract agreement with Catholic Healthcare West, the largest Catholic health system in the Western United States, which provides major improvements in patient care protections and dramatic gains for registered nurses, CNA announced today.
CNA Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro called it "the most comprehensive agreement in the country for the retention and recruitment of registered nurses."
A tentative settlement was signed this morning after all night talks on a pact that immediately affects 4,700 RNs in 12 major hospitals in Northern and Central California and ultimately will cover about 8,500 RNs in 24 hospitals in a statewide master pact.
In a most notable provision, CHW affirmed its commitment to safe staffing and to California's staffing law and placed the state's numeric RN-to-patient ratios in the contract for every CHW California hospital.
In addition, the contract offers major gains in retiree health, pension and benefit protections for RNs, innovative language to assure safe introduction of new technology, lift policies to prevent RN back injuries, and pay increases of 26% to 28% over the four years of the agreement. The tentative pact must be ratified by RNs who will vote on the contract over the next three days.
"The nurses believe their voice was heard with an agreement that should dramatically assist with retention of experienced RNs and recruit new nurses," said DeMoro. "CHW has demonstrated leadership for their patients and their nurses at a time when some systems, especially the University of California and Sutter Health have opposed efforts to ensure safer patient care in their hospitals."
By placing the ratios, including the hotly contested minimum of no more than five patients for one RN in general medical units, in the contract, the RNs will have a greater ability to ensure compliance with the state law, and the agreement provides for arbitration on any disputes involving ratios by a panel chaired by a neutral third person.
Weary nurse negotiators emphasized what Elizabeth Pataki, RN, from Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento, hailed as the "historic significance of guaranteeing for the first time inclusion of nurse-to-patient ratios in our contract."
Major gains in retirement security
"Ratios allow us to spend more time at the bedside addressing the needs of the patients, which improves patient outcomes," said Kathy Dennis, RN, of Mercy General.
On pensions, the pact establishes a new oversight committee of RNs selected by the nurses and management to evaluate the status of the plan to protect the nurses against the crisis faced by employees across the nation from Enron to United Airlines. Any changes in benefits must be negotiated, which also applies to health, vision and dental benefits - a key provision that is a major contrast with the UC hospitals and a center of that dispute.
"Like most people, nurses have concerns about the future and health of their pension," said Barbara Williams, RN at Dominican Santa Cruz. She noted that the committee will enable RNs to "monitor every aspect of this benefit and have direct input and oversight."
Similarly, the agreement provides a major improvement in retiree health benefits which will now be available with the hospital funding benefits of $1,000 per year of service to all CHW RNs, from age 62 on, up to a lifetime maximum of $25,000.
"Retiree health was a major goal of our negotiations," said Allen Fitzpatrick, RN, St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco. "Now nurses who have spent their careers caring for patients will be able to retire knowing they will have health care for themselves."
Innovative language on new technology
CHW, like most hospitals, is spending tens of millions of dollars on new technology programs. Nurses across the U.S. have increasingly found that technology is being used to supplant the clinical judgment of RNs with routinized systems at the expense of patient safety.
The precedent setting CHW language requires that deployment of technology will not limit the RNs in the exercise of their clinical judgment, including the ability to act as patient advocates, and assures that the technology will be used "to enhance, not degrade nursing skills."
For the first time, CHW agreed to assure safer lift policies. RNs suffer more debilitating back injuries, primarily from lifting patients, than any other profession.
CNA has fought to persuade employers to protect their RNs and patients with safer lift practices, and sponsored legislation two years in a row requiring hospitals to implement such policies.
"This will prevent back injuries and provide for safer patient handling," said Susan King, RN, of Methodist Hospital of Sacramento. "Our new lift team will continually teach our staff to use the multiple and unique equipment correctly and safely. I personally feel overjoyed that my patients can be moved without fear of their safety and the safety of my fellow nurses. Thank you CNA for getting this very important achievement."
Most of the RNs will earn an additional 26% over four years. For Sacramento area RNs who have been below others in their region, the increases will be 28%, and for the first time, RNs at Woodland Healthcare will achieve parity with their counterparts at the four Mercy hospitals in Sacramento.
"Woodland RNs made great improvements in patient care provisions, retirement, and wages and benefits," said Woodland RN Eric Peterson. "Woodland RNs will now have wage scales based on total RN experience and parity. Most important of all is the incorporation of the California safe staffing ratios in our contract to ensure quality patient care and patient safety."
Rhonda Collins, RN at St. Joseph's Medical Center in Stockton, praised the "strong solidarity" of the CHW RNs with their colleagues across the state to raise the wages for RNs at hospitals who were below community standards with local hospitals in their area. "We stood strong to reduce those gaps," she noted.
Other hospitals covered by the pact include Saint Francis Memorial, San Francisco; Sequoia Hospital, Redwood City; Mercy Hospital of Folsom; Mercy San Juan Medical Center, Carmichael; Mercy Medical Center, Merced; and Mercy Medical Center, Mt. Shasta.
Eventually, as a result of the agreement CNA will have a master contract that covers 24 CNA-represented hospitals in the CHW system who will negotiate together on a statewide pact for at least 8,500 RNs in 2009.
My intent was to show the many cards these people are trying to play to get nurses to join "their cause." The sooner PEOPLE (not just nurses) realize that they can make change without literally paying for it in the form of dues, the better. If anyone really thinks a union creates positive change, they need to look in the mirror because PEOPLE make change, unions make a profit off of what PEOPLE accomplish.
Maggie,
I think it's interesting that you would choose to place a recruitment letter for the union on a thread about decertifying the union.
They are agressively trying to organize many RNs.
I would urge anyone to look into what CNA has actually negotiated for most of the RNs they represent. Many of the CNA contracts DO NOT have retiree health or "pension". Most of the "union" hospitals that CNA represents that have a pension today already had one before CNA got there. CNA promised the RNs at St Joseph Eureka that they would have a pension and they DO NOT. They have a defined contribution plan and they had to wait 18 months longer to get it than their sister hospitals because of CNA. Not to mention that they now have to pay 2% of their pay to get what they would have had anyway...it's so sad that so many were fooled.
This is why we are now seeing so many decertification petitions. Nurses have awakened to the truth. CNA just wants their money!!!! It's not worth the termoil in the workplace between peers, it's not worth the STRIKES, it's not worth the $100/month! it's not worth being associated with screaming, sign carrying unprofessional people!
Best wishes to Scripps Encinitas and St Vincent Hospitals!!!!!!!!!!!!! :balloons:
I think it is appalling that unions claim to accomplish so much more than they actually do.
I believe that RNs are smarter than union organizers. They will do their own homework and draw their own conclusions.
My intent was to show the many cards these people are trying to play to get nurses to join "their cause." The sooner PEOPLE (not just nurses) realize that they can make change without literally paying for it in the form of dues, the better. If anyone really thinks a union creates positive change, they need to look in the mirror because PEOPLE make change, unions make a profit off of what PEOPLE accomplish.
New labor pact, if ratified, will ensure staffing levels regardless of court fight.
By Rachel Osterman -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Wednesday, July 13, 2005
In a new four-year contract with its unionized nurses, Catholic Healthcare West has agreed to adopt standards dictating how many patients can be assigned to a nurse, both sides announced Tuesday.
Although the staffing levels were already in effect at the nonprofit hospital chain, they had become the center of a political battle after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to undo state rules that required one nurse for every five patients in general medical wards....
...CHW also called the agreement a success: "The new contract, once ratified, will strengthen CHW by helping us retain and recruit the skilled registered nurses who are at the heart of the care we provide," Ernie Urquhart, CHW's senior vice president for human resources, said in a statement. ...
New labor pact, if ratified, will ensure staffing levels regardless of court fight.
By Rachel Osterman -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Wednesday, July 13, 2005
In a new four-year contract with its unionized nurses, Catholic Healthcare West has agreed to adopt standards dictating how many patients can be assigned to a nurse, both sides announced Tuesday.
Although the staffing levels were already in effect at the nonprofit hospital chain, they had become the center of a political battle after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to undo state rules that required one nurse for every five patients in general medical wards....
...CHW also called the agreement a success: "The new contract, once ratified, will strengthen CHW by helping us retain and recruit the skilled registered nurses who are at the heart of the care we provide," Ernie Urquhart, CHW's senior vice president for human resources, said in a statement. ...
I knew it was REVULSION!
The staffing ratios are the law. It's a bit redundant to put it in a contract.
I'd like to see the contract.
It's funny that they never mention that the union TAKES 2% of those same raises. I'm not impressed. Most non union hospitals give the same or better per year AND pay for performance without deducting dues.
Look what paying teachers for seniority only and not for performance has done to our school system! Peolple should be able to be rewarded for excellence.
Is there a provision for merit pay in this "landmark" deal?
I didn't think so. So nurse "can't get off my *^#" makes the same as nurse "goes the extra mile" as long as they've been there the same number of years?
stevierae
1,085 Posts
CA RNs----does anyone know if the RN to patient ratio in CA med-surg units is now 1:5, or is it still 1:6? When will the new mandate go into effect if it's still 1:6?
I imagine many hospitals are voluntarily implementing the new 1:5 ratio.