by James Parks, Feb 24, 2006

The nation’s nurses work on the frontlines of patient care and they know the nation’s health care system is intensive care. Now, more than 200,000 nurses in eight AFL-CIO unions are exploring how they can join together to coordinate their organizing and bargaining activities to improve patient care and give nurses a strong voice in fixing the healthcare system.
 
“RNs are joining together across our unions to take collective action through this coalition. We can’t count on hospitals to do the right thing, but we can count on each other,” says Cheryl Johnson, president of the United American Nurses.
 
Johnson and the leaders of seven other unions representing nurses announced Feb. 23 they are seeking AFL-CIO Executive Council approval to form an historic alliance, RNs Working Together. At its spring meeting next week, the AFL-CIO Executive Council will vote on recognizing RNs Coming Together as an Industrial Coordinating Committee.
 
“These 200,000 nurses will be sending the message loud and clear that we are the voice of nurses, we are the advocates for patients, and we will not allow any of our colleagues to be silenced,” says Ann Twomey, president of the Health Professionals and Allied Employees (HPAE)/AFT Healthcare.
 
At the July 2005 AFL-CIO Convention, the federation approved the creation of a new structure, the Industrial Coordinating Committee, to foster common strategies and practices for unions within a given industry. Unions that take part in the coordinating committee would receive additional support from the AFL-CIO. The first Industrial Coordinating Committee was formed last October by unions in the arts, entertainment, media and telecom industries.
 
Blogger Scott Shields on MyDD highlighted the move:.
 
…it has always concerned me that if a group of professionals is represented by
different unions, they might not wield the same bargaining power as if they were organized under one umbrella. So in my mind, this industry coordinating committee for nurses (or any profession, for that matter) seems long overdue.
 
The nurses’ first priority? Mobilizing for a national campaign to address the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) expected decision this spring on the rights of nurses to join a union. If the NLRB, the federal agency that is supposed to protect workers’ job rights, rules that nurses who occasionally oversee others are technically supervisors, it would take away nurses’ labor protections, including the freedom to form unions.
 
In addition to UAN and AFT, the members of RNs Working Together include AFGE, Communications Workers of America, Office and Professional Employees, UAW, United Nurses of America/AFSCME and the United Steelworkers.

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