Nurses to Protest from California to Maine This Week To Defend Their Rights to Unionize, Advocate for Patients

Citing an imminent and irreparable threat to nurses’ democratic right to union representation and their ability to safely advocate for their patients, thousands of registered nurses will take to the streets this week.

Among the protests are major rallies scheduled Tuesday in Los Angeles, Oakland, and Bangor, Maine, and in Chicago on Thursday, announced the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC).

At issue is an imminent ruling by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in a series of cases that could unfairly reclassify hundreds of thousands of RNs as “supervisors,” and thus ineligible for union representation, and the protection it provides for their patient advocacy.

Without such rights, the ability of RNs to advocate for their patients, without the threat of retaliation, will be fundamentally compromised.  Studies have documented a strong correlation between patient safety and improved patient outcomes when nurses have the protection of representation.

WHERE & WHEN:

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• LOS ANGELES, CA: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 @ 12:00 Noon
  NLRB Region 21, 888 South Figueroa Street
  (9th and Figueroa) downtown Los Angeles
• OAKLAND, CA: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 @ 11:30 AM
  Picketing starts at 11:30 at 12th and Broadway; Noon Rally at Civic Center on 14th between Broadway and Clay (Located near the 12th Street BART)
• BANGOR, ME: Tuesday, July 11th @ 4:00 PM
  Eastern Maine Medical Center, 489 State St.
• CHICAGO, IL: Thursday, July 13, 2006 @ 12:00 Noon
  NLRB Region 13, 209 LaSalle Street

These rallies are part of a national wave of action involving both nurses and other workers who may be affected. CNA/NNOC has been working with the AFL-CIO in coordinating the protests. Scores of other union members and supporters are expected to join CNA/NNOC at the July 11 protests. Other protests sponsored by the AFL-CIO are being planned in other cities during the week of July 10.

Additionally, CNA/NNOC has received thousands of pledges from nurses that they will “take all actions necessary, up to and including striking” if their employer “moves to deny RNs our rights to CNA union representation.” 

‘RNs will not turn back’

CNA Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro called the threatened ruling “a backlash from employers, abetted by a labor board that is increasingly hostile to working people, who are desperate to reverse the gains won by CNA and others that puts the well-being of nurses and patients ahead of the wealth and profits of corporate medical care.”

But, she emphasized, “RNs have learned well how to fight for their patients and their colleagues. They will not turn back.  Unified RNs have become the greatest impediment to the heartless reality of corporate medicine, and the leading voice for transformation to a more humane healthcare system,” DeMoro said.

“Corporate hospital employers also want to roll back the progress of a predominantly female work force which has finally begun to win the compensation and retirement security commensurate with their expertise and education after years of low pay and substandard benefits and pensions, and return to the days when nurses had few rights at the bedside.”

With the cases now pending before the NLRB, “hospitals now have the pretext to trample on the rights of tens of thousands of other RNs,” DeMoro said. “If the Constitutional ideals of free speech and freedom of association are discarded along the way, that appears to be little more than collateral damage to those pushing these policies.”

Background on the Decision

The three immediate cases that the NLRB are studying are known as Oakwood Healthcare Inc., Golden Crest Healthcare Center, and Croft Metals, Inc. They would affect lead employees in other work areas as well, but the main target is healthcare and RNs, and they were brought to the NLRB at the behest of the corporate healthcare industry.

The scope of the potential ruling is unknown. It could extend to just some lead RNs known as “charge” nurses. But a number of the most anti-union employers, management attorneys, and anti-union consultants want the restriction to apply to all RNs.

The AFL-CIO and CNA/NNOC are also criticizing the NLRB for its refusal to hold oral arguments on the issue prior to a ruling, and are calling for elected officials and other Americans to push the labor board to reverse that decision.