NY Union chief mobilizes nurses to fight hospitals

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

Found during m internet wanderings today. Karen

Crains NY Business

Barbara Benson

August 31, 2014

Union chief mobilizes nurses to fight hospitals

The fiery activism of Jill Furillo reinvigorates the labor group's push for job protections.

...ow, Ms. Furillo is channeling her liberal vision as executive director of the New York State Nurses Association, helping the once-staid union become a political player focused on getting Albany to mandate higher nurse-to-patient ratios while stemming the tide of hospital closures. Long Island College Hospital is just one front in a wider campaign to protect her members' jobs. "We've been very assertive," said Ms. Furillo. "And we intend to put more resources into the battle."

An emergency room RN who became executive director of the 37,000-member union in late 2012, Ms. Furillo, 63, raised NYSNA's profile in part by deftly hitching her union's interests to the leftward tide in city politics. The union made Bill de Blasio the first mayoral candidate it ever endorsed, then stood by him last year as he protested the closure of Long Island College Hospital—and was arrested in front of TV news cameras.

NYSNA's RNs have been as active parading along the legislative hallways of Albany as they have protesting outside failing hospitals in Brooklyn. They've also taken on social issues close to their heart: poverty, climate change and universal health care.

"We are not just going to be advocating for ourselves and our own wages and our own working conditions, but we have to be a partner with the public, and to answer the calling of unions, to go back to our roots, where unions were fighting for a social contract for people," Ms. Furillo said in a 2013 speech to a Canadian nurses group....

[Lev, MSN, RN, NP]

If NY gets mandatory ratios - and I think they will given how this woman is fighting - maybe I will move there. (Considering it anyway, but this would be a deal breaker for me).

[Ruger8mm]

Typical Union rabble rousing.

[ponymom]

Typical Union rabble rousing.

Ruger, healthcare unions typically don't raise much rabble (none that seems to effect positive change anyway). That's the problem. The doormat mentality. It's just too pervasive.

[herring_RN, ASN, BSN]

I hope the unionized and non union nurses of New York work for safe staffing ratios like we did in California.

Ratios are cost effective and save lives.

Because RNs have responsibility for nursing care we must have sufficient staffing to meet our moral, ethical, and legal obligations.

Jill was an excellent leader for us. I think state-by-state is how we will achieve ratios unless there is a big change in congress.

Jill Furillo, RN, BSN, PHN, is the executive director of the New York State Nurses Association, New York's largest union and professional association of registered nurses...

... As government relations director of the California Nurses Association, Furillo successfully shepherded the country's first law setting safe nurse-to-patient ratios through the California legislature. Building on this groundbreaking legislation, Furillo worked on behalf of thousands of nurses as chief negotiator and strategist at NNU to win comprehensive safe staffing standards in collective bargaining agreements in states from Nevada to Florida...

Jill Furillo, RN | New York State Nurses Association

[DoGoodThenGo]

1199 SEIU is New York's main *powerful* healthcare union and they do *NOT* want mandatory nurse staffing in any form currently presented. That union has deep and strong ties to NYS and local politicians so Ms. Furillo is having to battle two fronts right off the bat.

NYSNA in other New York political news has had wins and losses.

They back Bill de Blasio for mayor who promptly back tracked on saving LICH, which in the end went the way of Saint Vincent's (real estate sold off for luxury housing and a small urgent care center). Saving the bankrupt and widely predicted next NYC hospital to close, Interfaith in Brooklyn has thus far gone better.

As many will recall there was great noise about NYSNA members staging strikes at several major NYC hospitals over staffing ratios. In the end the final contract gave larger raises and promises (IIRC rather vague) about hiring additional staffing. However the key issue of mandatory patient ratios was not achieved. The hospitals dug in their heels, flatly refused and that it seems was that. Nurses, management agree on new 4-year contract | POLITICO

Near as one can tell in Albany mandatory nurse-patient ratio legislation along with mandatory BSN for entry isn't even on the radar.

[siegolindoRN]

I dont forsee mandated ratios in NYS. NY and Cali cultures are on opposite sides of the spectrum. NYSNA would have better luck getting "float pools" written into CBAs in order to improve overall staffing than legislation in Albany.