Is the ANA a union?

Music in My Heart · Feb 28, 2010

No, the ANA is not a union. A union is an organization which its members have given the right to represent them in contract negotiations with their employer. The ANA plays no such role.

tranquility00763 · Feb 28, 2010

But the ANA supports collective bargaining correct?

Music in My Heart · Feb 28, 2010

But the ANA supports collective bargaining correct?

In its statement of purpose, the ANA specifically mentions its support of collective-bargaining RIGHTS and "gaining better compensation and workplace conditions for nurses."

Promoting the the rights to collective bargaining is not the same as promoting collective bargaining. However, better compensation and workplace conditions is, in the minds of many people, best attained through collective bargaining.

llg, PhD, RN · Feb 28, 2010

The ANA does support collective bargaining. In the past, the organization also was the collective bargaining unit for many groups of many groups. Because that did make the ANA a de facto union, they split off their collective bargaining unit into a technically separate organization.

So ... while your reasoning is essentially correct, the ANA is technically not a collective bargaining organization. They just support the cause.

Yes, it does cause conflict with employers who are adamantly opposed to collective barganining -- and yes, individual nurse leaders are sometimes put into awkward politcal positions at work because of their ANA membership. That's the case at my job, where our VP for nursing is so adamantly opposed to collective bargaining that we try to avoid using the word "ANA" around her -- even though there is little collective bargaining in our state and our state nurses association has worked with the state hospital association. It makes for interesting conversations about things like practice standards, certification, and the Magnet Recognition Program.

Those of us in leadership positions who are also ANA members have to tread carefully. But then ... those of us in leadership positions should have the political skills to navigate that political awkwardness. If we didn't have those skills, we wouldn't stay in leadership positions for very long.

Chico David, BSN, RN · Mar 10, 2010

For a little more clarity on this:

The ANA is both an organization in its own right and a sort of federation of State Nurses Associations. Traditionally, when you joined your state nurses association you also joined the ANA. Some state nurses associations do collective bargaining and some don't. Historically, those that did often had separate governance structures for the "collective bargaining side" and the "professional association side". This is a legal requirement, since many (most?) of the leaders of the associations are managers and labor law prohibits managers from having a leadership role in a union. Some while back, for legal reasons, the ANA spun off the collective bargaining part into an organization called the UAN (United American Nurses) Before that, several of the states had left the ANA/UAN and more left afterwards - either remaining independant or forming other associations.

Then last year, the remainder of the UAN joined with the CNA/NNOC and the Massachusetts Nurses Assn. to form the NNU (National Nurses United)

Alphabet soup eh?

So: bottom line, now the ANA, even though it supports the right of nurses to bargain collectively, plays no role in collective bargaining and is in no way a union, though there may be a few states that do collective bargaining that are still affiliated - mostly not though.

And as an editorial comment: The interests of the ANA, being led by managers and academics, are much more closely aligned with those of hospital management than with the interests of staff nurses. The ANA, for example, has generally opposed real staffing ratio laws, as have the state nurses associations that don't do collective bargaining, while those that do collective bargaining and therefore represent the needs of staff nurses have supported that legislation.