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Rep. Carolyn McCarthy: Unions Help Nurses Be Effective Advocates |
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Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), who spent 30 years working as a nurse, knows the value of a union to good patient care. She also knows the damage the Bush-appointed National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) could do by barring many nurses and other workers from belonging to a union. On July 10, the first day of the national day of action to demand that the NLRB protect workers’ rights, McCarthy delivered these remarks on the House floor:
Today, I’d like to join my fellow nurses across the nation in standing up against another assault against our rights.
The Bush administration’s National Labor Relations Board’s rulings in three cases known as “Kentucky River” could strip nurses and thousands of other workers of their right to belong to a union.
Two years ago, Congress stopped the Bush administration’s efforts to classify nurses and other employees as “supervisors” in order to prevent them from receiving overtime pay. Those classified as supervisors do not have protected rights under federal law to join or form unions. This is a common tactic by employers to deny workers their rights to union representation.
As American families face record gas prices, rising interest rates and higher costs of living, the Bush administration once again is trying to make people work harder for less money and benefits.
In recent cases, the National Labor Relations Board has taken away workers’ protections and workers’ rights, including the rights of disabled workers, temporary employees and graduate employees. This summer could bring more such decisions from the Bush Labor Board. The “Kentucky River” decisions could strip hundreds of thousands of workers of their rights under federal labor law.
These decisions could potentially affect workers in a wide range of industries, including health care, building and construction, energy, broadcasting, and port shipping.
Those at risk of losing these federal law protections are skilled and experienced workers who, as part of their jobs, give instructions to lesser skilled and experienced workers.
As a nurse for 30 years, [I know] helping out younger, less-experienced nurses is part of the job. Nurses and other workers shouldn’t be penalized for helping those with less experience. If workers lose their protections as “employees” under federal law, they may be fired or otherwise disciplined for union activity.
They’ll lose the freedom to choose to join or remain a member of a union. And they will lose their ability to have a voice on the job.
For example, for nurses union membership provides a voice on the job and the protections needed to be effective patient advocates. A nurse with a union works with confidence to make tough calls and be a strong patient advocate when patient decisions need to be made. Patients need a strong voice to stand up to those who put the bottom line before patients’ health care needs.
But this decision will not just affect nurses. Others affected include foremen on construction jobs who work with a team of workers who could lose their union rights under a broad definition of supervisor. Thousands of painters, welders, sheet metal workers, plumbers, electricians and others could lose their right to be in a union.
Workers deserve to be heard on this issue, which is why tens of thousands of union members have asked their members of Congress to appeal to the Labor Board for an opportunity to provide oral arguments. Uninterested in hearing from working people, the Bush-appointed Labor Board has refused since 2001 to hear oral arguments in any case. In fact, this is the only five-year period in the last 25 years in which the board has not held any oral arguments.
Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join hundreds of thousands of nurses and other workers to stand up and fight together for accountability from Bush’s Labor Board. Together, we can make sure these hard-working Americans can have the union representation they deserve and are entitled to.
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