Union vote last week in east Tx hospital

-jt · Apr 14, 2003

Believe it or not, The Texas Nurses Assoc was the first nurses union there and started representing Texas nurses as a union with collective bargaining in 1968, beginning with the VA hospitals in that state and spreading from there. But in 1979, the Texas Nurses Assoc majority membership (non-staff RNs) voted to do away with its union branch and that assoc has been anti-union ever since. There are a few other unions representing nurses with others in Texas now, like I think the SEIU (or another AFL-CIO union, I cant remember which) at a hospital in San Antonio and the UAN (RNs-only union) being called in by nurses in other parts of Teaxs. So it can be done.

Good luck to those nurses at Good Shephard.

mattsmom81 · Apr 15, 2003

Thanks for that info JT!! I had no idea there were ANY here since it is such a dirty word in my area..LOL!

Good to know it is being done...you have given me hope!! :)

I particularly like hearing UAN is representing nurses here.

-jt · Apr 16, 2003

It doesnt yet but it has been called by nurses in that state to start the process & will be. Ive heard that our wonderful fearless-leader-executive director of the NYSNA, a transplanted RN originally from Georgia, is going back down south & taking on the job of organizing Texas nurses with the UAN when she retires from NYSNA later this year. Since the creation of the UAN was originally her brainstorm, she was instrumental in bringing it to fruition, and the NYSNA is a founding member of the organization, it would be great for those nurses to have her there educating them about them collective bargaining, but the Texas Nurses Assoc is gonna have an MI - they are actively trying to keep nurses unions - especailly the UAN - out of their state- despite what the working RN wants.

from a Nurseweek article:

"ANA's creation of labor entity worried the TNA"

http://www.nurseweek.com/features/99-8/tex-ana.html

Isnt that funny? TNA has only about 5,000 members yet they they think they can control the labor rights of every nurse in their state. They may be in for a surprise cause there already are all these unions in Texas & some of them are already representing nurses:

http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/Texas/Society_and_Culture/Labor/

So how did the GSH vote turn out?

mattsmom81 · Apr 17, 2003

I went to a few TNA meetings and found they were a management/ coffee clutch group...definitely not interested in nurses (other than themselves). Most are also members of the nurse executive organization... no surprise. Obviously I am NOT a member.

I look forward to changes coming here soon and appreciate the good info JT!! :)

Wish I knew about the vote too...will do some newspaper searches to find out.....:)