RNs on Capitol Hill Urge Passage of Employee Free Choice, RESPECT Act

by Mike Hall, Mar 12, 2009

Some 100 registered nurses (RNs) from a dozen United American Nurses (UAN) affiliates across the country were on Capitol Hill yesterday urging lawmakers to protect patient safety and workers’ rights.

They called on U.S. Senate and House members to approve legislation setting minimum RN-patient staffing levels and urged passage of the Employee Free Choice Act and the RESPECT Act (expected to be introduced later this year).

UAN nurses from Minnesota and New York, including UAN President Ann Converso, RN (far right), visit congressional offices on UAN’s Lobby Day.

In 2006, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a decision known as the Oakwood cases that redefined which workers could be classified as “supervisors” and therefore ineligible to join a union. Nurses could be especially hard hit by the ruling and some hospitals have reclassified nurses. The RESPECT Act would protect nurses and other workers from reclassification. Says UAN President Ann Converso, RN:

We are already seeing the negative impact of the Oakwood decision, which has potentially jeopardized the union rights of thousands of staff nurses who serve charge duty in their hospitals our ability as staff nurses to strongly and effectively advocate for our patients is protected by our union. That’s why it’s so important that we enact legislation like the RESPECT Act and the Employee Free Choice Act safeguarding the right of every RN at the bedside to choose a union.

In a survey conducted by UAN last year, nearly 40 percent of respondents said that in the units where they work, patients sustained preventable harm due to unsafe staffing ratios at least once a month or more. One of those who took the survey, an RN from Honolulu, wrote that her biggest concern about unsafe nurse-to-patient staffing levels was

a patient falling and breaking his hip because there was no one to answer the call light…a patient coding because I could not be there since I was helping another patient with a critical condition…not enough time for nurse-to-patient education…this goes on and on and on.

The nurses called for legislation patterned after a bill introduced in the last Congress by Rep. Jan. Schakowsky (D-Ill.) that would establish minimum nurse-to-patient staffing ratios to improve patient safety and quality of care. Safe staffing levels would give nurses manageable patient loads, which would allow them to provide better care while also avoiding preventable medical errors. Safe nurse-patient ratios also would address the nursing shortage that has left our nation’s hospitals critically understaffed.

Last fall, UAN nurses worked hard to get out the vote for Obama and other candidates, say UAN Legislative Committee members Linda Hamilton, RN, and Carolyn Hietamaki, RN:

But our job isn’t over—in fact, now the real work begins. We’ve got to make sure that our new president and Congress hear from staff nurses on issues from health care reform to RN staffing to union rights.

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