Whitman goes toe-to-toe with nurses union

[NNU NURSE]

whitman goes toe-to-toe with nurses union

by martin wisckol, orange county register

2010-07-02 13:14:10

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/whitman-256161-nurses-union.html

meg whitman is trying her hand at a manner of union busting – and her degree of success will help determine whether she's elected governor in november.

several major labor unions have launched campaigns to elect democrat jerry brown, with the california nurses association taking a particularly aggressive tack. even before the primary, a delegation from the union was dogging billionaire whitman at public events, dressing up in whitman wigs and featuring its own queen meg. a sampling of its satirical slogans: "only the rich deserve health care." "rich enough to rule." "we can't afford our democracy so why not try a monarchy?"

the nurses union has set up a facebook page, www.queenmeg2010.com. it's bought ads on spanish-language radio, reminding latino voters of her strong "no amnesty, no driver licenses, no sanctuary cities, no state universities for illegal immigrants" language during the primary. they're also planning to launch a campaign targeting women voters.

whitman has struck back by setting up her own website for nurses, www.truthfornurses.com. she points out that only one in four nurses here belong to the statewide union. she has done two mailings so far to california nurses. her poll of nurses shows whitman and brown in a statistical dead heat (the nurses union counters that the poll methodology was rigged).....

[Colfax]

:dancgrp:

[Colfax]

the whitman agenda is dangerous to nurses and our patients and needs to be exposed and shot down.

hi, david. do you mean "shot down" like with a gun?

[Colfax]

And btw I'm a lifelong liberal Democrat. This November--if I live til November--will be the first time I'm voting Republican in my life. I'll vote Whitman for governor and probably a bunch of Democrats down the rest of the ticket. There's a lot I don't like about Whitman either. A LOT. But I have a certain problem right now that I think Meg is better equipped to deal with than Jerry, because of who Jerry owes and who owns him.

[herring_RN, ASN, BSN]

Hi, David. Do you mean "shot down" like with a gun?

Looking it up in my thesaurus I found:

Debunk

To expose the falseness in something.

To cause to be no longer believed or valued: Deflate, discredit, explode, puncture.

Informal: shoot down.

Idioms: knock the bottom out of, shoot full of holes.

[Colfax]

herring_RN,

I gather you're a CNA/NNU employee, yes? Does your position at CNA/NNU qualify you to speak on behalf of CNA/NNU?

If so could you please explain the following expense items from CNA's Form LM-2 Labor Organization Annual Report covering the period 7/1/08-6/30/09? These items were paid for out of staff nurses mandatory union dues, now over $1000/year, and it's not immediately clear to me how the California nurses who were forced to pay for these items benefitted from them:

Renaissance Hotel, Las Vegas NV : $34,542

Pin Kaow Thai Restaurant, Las Vegas, NV: $34,313

Rhodes Ranch Country Club, Las Vegas, NV: $49,539

Siena Spa & Hotel, Reno, NV: $10,148

Goldilocks Bakeshop, Las Vegas, NV: $5,571

Famous Dave's BBQ, Las Vegas, NV: $21,636

Enterprise Rent A Car, Las Vegas, NV: $59,284

Hilton Hotel, Las Vegas, NV: $6,403

Mirage Hotel, Las Vegas, NV: $9,706

El Jefe Mexican Restaurant, Las Vegas, NV: $11,462

Hornblower Cruises, San Francisco, CA: $131,745

These are just a small sample of the expense items I have questions about. But you've got to start somewhere.

If you're not qualified to speak on behalf CNA/NNU, herring_RN, maybe one of the 99 CNA/NNU employees earning over $100,000 a year in salary (see pp 20-61 of Form LM-2 for salary figures) can offer some explanation.

Rose Ann Demoro's husband, Robert, who is not a nurse, has been paid over $2,000,000 by CNA/NNU over the years (salary, benefits, reimbursed expenses) for his work as a "researcher". That's $2,000,000 deducted out of the nurses paychecks. What does Robert research anyhow? Maybe Robert could research these Las Vegas expenditures and get back to us?

http://pk.b5z.net/i/u/6011029/i/CNA_2009_LM-2.pdf

[viral2010]

Yet more reasons to live in a RTW state where forced unionism isn't allowed. So here I am working my butt off as a NP and making less than the admin people who head up a NURSE's union and they're spending $35K at a restaraunt! $2M for research done by the president's husband! This money came out of hard working Nurse's pockets and it was for the enjoyment of the upper admin folks! The list of expenditures only furthers my belief that unions are nothing more than organized crime. The last thing I would want my dues going for is thousands of dollars of BBQ!!! BUT, I'm sure there are multiple ridiculous explanations for this and can't wait to hear them:eek:

[Chico David, BSN, RN]

I'm not an employee, but am a volunteer board member who votes to approve those salaries and has an opportunity to see how hard those people work for what they earn. So I will respond to this.

First, I would refer readers to my comment number 4 in this thread for a general comment:

https://allnurses.com/collective-bargaining-nursing/embezzlement-nurse-union-492522.html

The fact that you so closely parrot the attack lines of the Whitman campaign make me think it likely has particular applicability here.

I don't think you are interested in an explanation, only in baseless attacks. But there may be others who would genuinely be interested in an explanation, so I'll explain a little reality:

Over the last several years, CNA/NNOC has run a series of large organizing campaigns in Las Vegas, resulting in adding thousands of nurses to our membership. To run such a series of campaigns involves having numerous organizers and nurse voluteers on site for months at a time, with the attendant expenses for hotel rooms, meals, etc, numerous open house meetings for nurses, large CE classes to attract and educate nurses - all of them typically with food served as a way of attracting nurses to attend, meeting room rental, etc. If one is doing any of those in the city of Las Vegas, the venue is most certainly going to be in a hotel casino. As a union, we have a strict policy of using only union facilities when available, so that means that the very cheapest places are off limits to us, but we use the least expensive facilities available and are very quite careful in spending our members' money. Nest year we'll have our annual meeting in Las Vegas, and even though the rooms there cost half what they do in San Francisco, that cost figure will dwarf those you quote - so what?

Because of the success we have had in growing our union uner Rose Ann DeMoro's inspirational leadership we now have annual meetings that are quite large - typically a thousand or so members, prospective members, and guests from other unions. At one of those meetings we took about a thousand people out for an evening dinner and boat trip on the bay as part of that meeting. So the people on that cruise you reference are not staff, but the volunteer, dues-paying members who do a large part of the work of running the union on a day-to-day basis. Yes, when those people get together to do the work of the union at our annual meetings, we do fit in a little entertainment - as most similar organizations would. Divide that number by a thousand for the cost per person, and it doesn't sound out of bounds to me.

I'm not going to get into Mr DeMoro's salary, except to note a couple of things here - pretty tricky rhetorical device by the way - to quote a total salary, benefits (and expenses) over many years of work as a way to make a pretty moderate salary sound a lot larger. Gosh, in all the years I've worked at my hospital I've surely made way over 2 million - what did I do for all that money?

Our research department, which Don heads, has produced numerous detailed reports over the years. Heavy, in depth reports, that we use in setting policy and and that are regularly quoted and used in national publications and by government agencies at the state and national level. Some of them, like the report on claim denial rates by insurers in Califrornia have made national headlines. That department also generates a lot of our educational materials for our members and our leadership on a variety of subjects.

As someong promoting the candidacy of a woman who became a billionaire by running an online garage sale and who offshored thousands of jobs from California to foreign countries in the process, it seems a little out of place for you to be complaining about the fact that the leaders of the most successful union in the country are able to make a decent living at their jobs.

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

Herring is a passionate staff RN who strongly supports CNA as feels reaped benefits of that organization in her workplace.....

Just like I am passionate that ANA has helped strengthen the nursing profession on the national level + due to my participation in PSNA at the local/state level participate in enacted legislation to improve nursing in PA...and prevent AMA from controlling the nursing profession.

We each speak up, take ownership in OUR profession and within work setting.

[herring_RN, ASN, BSN]

herring is a passionate staff rn who strongly supports cna as feels reaped benefits of that organization in her workplace.....

just like i am passionate that ana has helped strengthen the nursing profession on the national level + due to my participation in psna at the local/state level participate in enacted legislation to improve nursing in pa...and prevent ama from controlling the nursing profession.

we each speak up, take ownership in our profession and within work setting.

thank you karen. who else is old enough to remember the attempt by the ama to replace rns with a new technical worker?

[color=#333333][color=#333333]nurses association applauds demise of registered care technician proposal

[color=#333333]kansas city, mo., june 28 /prnewswire/ -- the american nurses association (ana) applauded yesterday's action by the american medical association's (ama) house of delegates to abandon its plan to implement pilot sites for a new category of health care worker, the registered care technician (rct).

[color=#333333]"we are pleased by ama's action and look forward to working collaboratively to address the health care needs of the public and to develop and implement realistic solutions to the nursing shortage," said ana president lucille a. joel, ed.d., r.n., f.a.a.n

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1g1-8583906.html

escalation of the nurse-physician conflict: registered care technologists and the economic crisis.

chernomas r, chernomas w.

school of hygiene and public health, johns hopkins university, baltimore, md 21205.

[color=#985735]abstract

rivalry between nurses and physicians has been escalating in recent years. the american medical association's (ama's) recent proposal to deal with the nursing shortage by introducing a non-nurse bedside care technician to be called a registered care technologist has met with strong opposition from the american nurses' association (ana).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2583881

[kids]

Over the last several years, CNA/NNOC has run a series of large organizing campaigns in Las Vegas, resulting in adding thousands of nurses to our membership. To run such a series of campaigns involves having numerous organizers and nurse voluteers on site for months at a time, with the attendant expenses for hotel rooms, meals, etc, numerous open house meetings for nurses, large CE classes to attract and educate nurses - all of them typically with food served as a way of attracting nurses to attend, meeting room rental, etc. If one is doing any of those in the city of Las Vegas, the venue is most certainly going to be in a hotel casino. As a union, we have a strict policy of using only union facilities when available, so that means that the very cheapest places are off limits to us, but we use the least expensive facilities available and are very quite careful in spending our members' money. Nest year we'll have our annual meeting in Las Vegas, and even though the rooms there cost half what they do in San Francisco, that cost figure will dwarf those you quote - so what?

The Super 8 just off the strip is a union facility. So is Extended Stay America. Both have meeting rooms and banquet facilities too. Of course it isn't as plush and pretty nor is their addresses as prestigious as the Mirage and Renaissance.

There are other facilities in Vegas that would have been appropriate that are NOT casinos, but again they aren't as pretty, plush or have prestigious addresses.

At one of those meetings we took about a thousand people out for an evening dinner and boat trip on the bay as part of that meeting. So the people on that cruise you reference are not staff, but the volunteer, dues-paying members who do a large part of the work of running the union on a day-to-day basis. Yes, when those people get together to do the work of the union at our annual meetings, we do fit in a little entertainment - as most similar organizations would. Divide that number by a thousand for the cost per person, and it doesn't sound out of bounds to me.

$131,000 divide by 1000 is $130 per person, I DO find that "out of bounds" for entertaining volunteers in any environment.

From the numbers posted 375 nurses got to pay for a party and vacation (most) never got to attend.

There, I fixed my typo.

[Chico David, BSN, RN]

$131,000 divide by 1000 is $1300 per person, I DO find that "out of bounds" for entertaining volunteers in any environment.

Gosh, if your math skills are any indication of the quality of your argument....

(you're off by a factor of ten - that's $130, not $1300

[Chico David, BSN, RN]

And you really should work on that math - make that kind of mistake in a pediatric dosing calculation and you kill a patient for sure.