NYSNA and the UAN

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Specializes in PCICU.

Does anyone know the reason behind NYSNA's attempt to disaffiliate from the UAN? I'm sure that you guys (NYSNA members) have received stuff via email and regular mail. At first I thought that disaffiliation was probably not a good idea, but i'm starting to wonder why NYSNA is doing this...

Any thoughts?

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NYSNA is conducting a poll to ascertain from their members if they want to stay in our national union the UAN. It is a sad thing to have to ask our members to disaffiliate from a national union the state nurses associations gave rise to. However the leadership of the UAN has lost the vision for what the UAN was suppose to be, a national union for and by NURSES. Even though they insist this won't change read on and see how this is destined to change the direction of our national permanently.

The concern we are trying to express is the UAN has entered into affiliation talks with another union, the SEIU. This affiliation has many of the UAN states across this country taking drastic action to distance themselves from what they perceive as a fatal undertaking by the UAN. .

If we affiliate with SEIU under Dennis Rivera from 1199 fame, the UAN promises we will keep our UAN identity and constitution even after 85,000 SEIU nurses infiltrate our current 94,000 member UAN union. These nurses will keep their SEIU membership and benefits as well as now gain a membership rights in each state nurses association including the right to sit on the Boards of Directors and all governing bodies on a state and national level, including the ANA and UAN.

Since the UAN is governed by the National Labor Assembly, the NLA will now have a significant increase in delegates for those 85,000 nurses coming into the UAN which will give SEIU and their nurses a strong voice in governance of our UAN.

This new group could actually call for a complete merger of the two unions, with a show of hands we could be locked in to this agreement forever. Unlike NYSNA we don't get a vote to disaffiliate from SEIU like you are getting here, in SEIU if you want out NYSNA would have to leave everything they own at the door step just to get out.

SEIU is a healthcare workers union, they are great organizers of everything but nurses. Which is why they have less than 5% of their 1million plus membership that are nurses (RNs and LPNs), they offer poor representation of their members, and they are philosophically misaligned with many of the needs of nurses in this country. They have formed labor management agreements with some of our employers here in NY and have attempted to under mind the contracts we have in place, they have allowed the Berger commission to close hospitals because of agreements they had with the then governor the list goes on. Recently 2000 nurses in Missouri covered by UFCW were offered to SEIU in a swap, and those nurses chose not to be given to SEIU and voted to be non union rather than be with SEIU. SEIUs reputation is well known by nurses nation wide.

SEIU knows they can't organize healthcare workers if the nurses in those facilities aren't organized, they can't organize nurses because we want professional unions.

This agreement / affiliation whatever they want to call it will significantly diminish the voices and influence of nurses in this country and change the landscape of our profession as we get lost in a "Healthcare Workers" Union with a voice just under a whisper.

Only Nurses can speak for Nurses and that is the way we will keep it if you vote YES to disaffiliate. The board of NYSNA needs to hear your vote in this poll so they can know the will of its membership before making the final decision to leave the UAN.

NYSNA RN

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Specializes in PCICU.

thank you for explaining this to me. I realized that all they were doing is taking a poll, not making a definite decision. I am wondering why NYSNA has not made their position more public...because no one at work knew, and this thread sat here for awhile before you responded, leading me to believe that there isn't enough information out there for nurses to make an informed decision.

I'm glad that it was only a "poll" because, after reading what you posted (and what a NYSNA delegate finally explained to me), i would have voted to disaffiliate. Its a shame that its all coming down to this...

I also found out that the UAN loses $1 million per year should NYSNA disaffiliate...interesting...

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thank you for explaining this to me. I realized that all they were doing is taking a poll, not making a definite decision. I am wondering why NYSNA has not made their position more public...because no one at work knew, and this thread sat here for awhile before you responded, leading me to believe that there isn't enough information out there for nurses to make an informed decision.

I'm glad that it was only a "poll" because, after reading what you posted (and what a NYSNA delegate finally explained to me), i would have voted to disaffiliate. Its a shame that its all coming down to this...

I also found out that the UAN loses $1 million per year should NYSNA disaffiliate...interesting...

The UAN actually loses over 3 million if NYSNA disaffiliates. The reason that NYSNA didn't want to take a position in the polling is that they wanted and trusted the membership would make their own decisions.

This was exactly what the UAN supporting group called "NYSNA Nurses for Unity" counted on when they spread fliers and information that "looked like NYSNA" fliers telling members to vote against the disaffiliation. They knew that NYSNA would not try to unduly influence their members one way or the other.

I hope this explains some of the confusion you expressed.

Respectfully,

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Specializes in Neonatal ICU (Cardiothoracic).

Our union delegate told me that the UAN has been entering into closed-room discussions without NYSNA representation. That's all I know.....

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