RN Super unions: squabelling and splintering

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

updating an viewers on ongoing nursing union organization disputes: militancy and autonomy central themes. karen

found @ modern healthcare....free registration required.

unified, yes; united, no

as the new nursing union behemoth—the national nurses united—is unveiled, some of its new members aren't exactly jumping for joy

by joe carlson

posted: december 14, 2009

...“the people who have their hands on the levers of power here don't have ideas that we would consider mainstream ideas,” said management labor consultant chris cimino, president and ceo of chessboard consulting. “there is some very radical ideology that is in charge of driving the nnu.”

“the nnu” is national nurses united, the latest acronym to officially enter the organized labor lexicon after its 134 delegates—representing as many as 154,000 registered nurses—cast unanimous votes dec. 7 in favor of merging three pre-existing nurse groups. experts on all sides say it appears to be the largest nurse union ever formed in the u.s.

however, it's an open question whether the group can hold itself together amid its tough tactics and strong anti-management rhetoric, not to mention its unusual three-party leadership structure that detractors say is only designed to obscure the fact that the nnu is really just a nationalization of the california nurses association.

“this is definitely going to shake things up in healthcare. there's going to be a lot of fallout because there's a lot of nurse unions that are not on this bandwagon,” said management labor lawyer stephanie dodge gournis, a partner with drinker biddle & reath in chicago.

slightly less than half of the new group's members come from two organizations: the 23,000-member massachusetts nurses association and the united american nurses, whose 45,000 members belong to a federation of more than 20 state-based nurses associations. one leader from both groups was selected to serve as a co-president in the nnu, with the third coming from the california nurses. demoro, the executive director, reports to the three co-presidents.

meanwhile, 86,000 members came from the california nurses association/national nurses organizing committee, which under demoro's leadership became the first state association to defect from the american nurses association, in 1995, with the goal of taking a more confrontational approach to hospital management....

jean ross, the uan designate to the three-member council of presidents for the nnu, acknowledged that the uan appeared to be splintering in the weeks leading up to the nnu formation and that some state organizations may eventually secede. the michigan and minnesota nurses' associations were the staunchest nnu supporters and also brought the biggest number of members, with a combined membership of 32,000. but the future is unclear for the uan's 13,000 members in other states that were more skeptical of the nnu, such as alaska, florida and illinois.

“we have members who are supportive, but unfortunately their leadership has been difficult,” ross said. “i still hope that the nurses in those other states will take some control … and say, ‘as much as we don't like some of this stuff, we have to stick together.' ”

once upon a time, the various state nurses associations were virtually all members of the american nurses association, but the decision by california's nurses to blaze their own path inspired others to break away as well, observers say. in the 15 years since the nurse-union landscape has grown, it has become highly balkanized as groups jostle for membership and power.

the service employees international union has been aggressive in courting nurses to its 85,000-member nurse alliance, which previously was a contender for the largest nurse-only unit in the country. however the seiu includes more than 1 million healthcare workers drawn from every department in the hospital organization chart, causing critics to say nurses' unique needs—and comparatively higher salary dues—got lost within the giant international union.

this year also saw the formation of another state-nurse organization, the national federation of nurses, representing about 70,000 nurses from the state nurses associations in montana, new jersey, new york, ohio, oregon and washington (nov. 16, p. 24). however, observers say that given its stated emphasis on self-governance and sovereignty and its aversion to battling other unions directly, it remains to be seen if the nfn will be aggressive enough in the long term to stay together in the face of a challenger like the nnu.....

.

from union democracy review #183 january-february, 2010 ›

new national union aims to unite nurses

.....what sets the stage for all these events is the long convoluted story of nurses unionism.

from "professionalism" to unionism: the historical trend among registered nurses has been a shift away from narrow "professionalism" toward unionism, that is, a realization by at-the-bed staff nurses that, like all other employees, their working conditions must be protected and their rights nailed down by unions in collective bargaining. for decades, the principal voice for nurses had been the american nurses association. founded in 1911 as a professional society for developing ethical standards, lobbying, pr, and education, it rejected collective bargaining and was hostile to unionism. but in the mid-forties, when staff nurses sought representation on the job, the ana established a separate bargaining division. it was necessarily a complicated setup because the ana continued to be management controlled while federal law required that labor organizations be free of management domination.

the structure provided a limited degree of self government for employed staff nurses. each ana state affiliate set up its own separate quasi-autonomous collective bargaining unit, but financing and final administrative control remained in the hands of non-union boards of directors. in time, staff nurses demanded a greater degree of autonomy.

these quasi union state groups joined together in the united american nurses, still controlled by the ana and dependent on it for financing. in 2001, representing those 108,000 nurses, the uan joined the afl-cio. registered nurses were now identified as part of the organized labor movement. in 2003, the uan became a fully autonomous organization financed by per capita payments from its own affiliates. for a time it remained loosely affiliated with the ana but is now effectively independent.

in all these permutations and combinations, registered nurses have drifted toward unionism. union enthusiasts, however, want a more deliberate, activist, organizing unionism. dispersed now among all the organizations that compete for nurses, they look for a unifying force that can organize the drive to bring together most of the nation's 2,500,000 registered nurses. now, the new national nurses united, under the leadership of the california nurses association, stakes its claim to leadership as the "largest union of direct care nurses ... about a century overdue." but can it succeed where the american association of registered nurses, the united american nurses, and the seiu have failed? the experience of at least 70 years indicates that the main barrier to the formation of a single strong union is the conflict between centralization and autonomy. the challenge is to find a way to com-bine the nurses' quest for union power with their persisting aspiration for autonomous rights....

news re nnu takeover other unions

from: [color=#3b5998]i hear the train a comin'

so this is what i’m hearing from our friends in illinois and florida

the illinois nurses association (ina) economic and general welfare commission (labor cabinet) has run the nurses union labor program in illinois for decades. they were a founding member in the now dissolved united american nurses (uan) and they remained in the national nurses united (nnu) in order to stay in the afl cio.

they had emphatically objected to the merger process engaged in between the uan, the california nurses association/ national nurses organizing committee (cna/nnoc) and the massachusetts nurses association. they had been raided by cna/ nnoc before and their cook county unit was ripped from them by cna/nnoc in a bloody battle between the illinois nurses association and cna/ nnoc.

the cna, in the guise of the new nnu, has inserted itself into contract negotiations at the university of chicago medical center -over the objections of the local bargaining committee- and the illinois economic and general welfare commission. the illinois nurses association holds the certificates for the union from the nlrb just like mna does for our units. each state is autonomous. these nurses had a protracted dispute with the hospital and rejected an early tentative agreement and now the cna/nnu has sown discord and confusion in an already tense situation.......

former uan affiliates, the florida lerc (the labor arm of the florida nurses association) and hawaii nurses association have disaffiliated from the nnu. florida labor commission members (lerc) who run the labor program like our mna board runs ours, report that the “cna/nnu has refused to recognize florida's disaffiliation notice and is engaged in raids at its facilities in florida.”

despite the pre existing uan affiliation agreement giving the florida labor council the right to unilaterally leave with a 30 day notice (just like our touted affiliation agreement with the nnu)!

the cna/nnu is contacting florida lerc nurses in another attempt to divide, confuse and conquer

nurses move toward a 'superunion' | labor notes

hawaii nurses association chose different path after previous hostile takeover attempt by cna:

hna goes public with opeiu, afl-cio affiliation - 02/25/2010

[Chico David, BSN, RN]

An interesting variety of points of view: Some thoughtful and interesting, others less so. I would note that pretty much all the negative statements about NNU in that first article are from officers or employees of union busting companies - the ones that management hires to terrorize their employees into voting against unionization. Maybe not the best source for useful comment on a union, but you can well understand why they would not be happy at a larger, stronger, more united Nurses' union.