Major Threat to RNs’ Voice, Representation Rights - Nurses Plan Protests July 11 in Los Angeles, Oakland - Hundreds of RNs say they will strike if their rights are abridged

A major ruling that could be made in the coming weeks by the National Labor Relations Board poses a major threat to the democratic rights of registered nurses to form unions and speak out on behalf of patients, the California Nurses Association warned today.

CNA will be sponsoring protest rallies at federal offices on Tuesday, July 11 in Los Angeles and Oakland. In addition, in just the past week, thousands of CNA members have signed a pledge 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.”

At the request of hospital and nursing home industry employers, the NLRB, which is now stacked with anti-union board members appointed by the Bush Administration, are posed to make a ruling that thousands of RNs are “supervisors” because they make clinical assignments to other staff. Under federal labor supervisors are not eligible to join unions.

The three immediate cases 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.

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.

Such a ruling would make it far more difficult for unrepresented nurses to form or join unions. Currently represented RNs could face attempts by some employers to revoke their union representation based on the decision. The result would be the loss of contractual protections against unfair termination or discipline, the loss of pay or benefits, and the sharp curtailment of patient protections.

‘RNs will not turn back’

But, CNA Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro emphasized, “RNs have learned well how to fight for their patients and their colleagues. They will not turn back.”

She 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.”

“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 Oakwood, and the other cases, 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.”

The AFL-CIO has also been voicing concerns about how the ruling would affect RNs and other working people, and other unionists and supporters are expected to join CNA at the July 11 protests. Other protests sponsored by the AFL-CIO are being planned in other cities during the week of July 10.

In addition to the strike pledge and the July 11 rallies, CNA said it will join with the AFL-CIO in calling on members of Congress to press the NLRB to hold oral arguments on the issue prior to a ruling.

Oakland Rally
Date: Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Time: 11:30am
Place: Federal Building, 1301 Clay Street
            Downtown Oakland, near the 12th Street BART Station

Los Angeles Rally
Date: Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Time: 12:00 Noon
Place: NLRB Region 21, 888 South Figueroa Street
            Downtown Los Angeles, 9th and Figueroa