Fla. Nurses Vote NNU, Health Care Workers at VA Choose AFGE
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Registered nurses at Palmetto General Hospital in Hialeah, Fla., last night overwhelmingly voted—86 percent—to join National Nurses Organizing Committee-Florida, the state affiliate of National Nurses United (NNU). Earlier this month, AFGE signed up 700 medical professionals at the Veterans Affairs’ (VA’s) Edward Hines Jr. Hospital in Hines, Ill.
Key issues for the 500 Palmetto nurses include a stronger voice in patient care protections, improved staffing and strengthened economic and workplace standards for RNs. RN Ailen Leiva called the win “a clear mandate by Palmetto RNs who see an urgent need to improve quality of care.”
Rose Campbell, an intensive care unit RN at Palmetto, says:
I am looking forward to bargaining for improved staffing, which will decrease turnover. We need to recruit and retain experienced RNs in order to provide the safest patient care possible.
Emergency Health Care Workers Choose Steelworkers
More than 450 EMTs, paramedics, ambulance mechanics and other workers at American Medical Response (AMR) in Redlands and Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., voted to join the United Steelworkers (USW) last week.
The AMR paramedics and EMTs in San Bernardino County have the highest annual call volume yet the workers in the two newly organized operations are among the lowest paid in the state, says USW Vice President Fred Redmond.
Paramedic Harry Stone says, “Emergency medicine is my calling.”
I feel this should be a career, not a stepping stone… and it breaks my heart to see so many quality individuals leave for “better” jobs.
Ukraine Unions Leading the Fight for Quality Health Care
Alexander Feltham of the Solidarity Center reports on the struggle of health care workers in Ukraine to gain better conditions for patients and a decent contract.
The global economic crisis has had a severe impact in eastern Ukraine, where Soviet-era mines and steel mills dominate the economy. The health care system in eastern Ukraine, which desperately needs updating, is starved by unrealistically low budgets and funding that is routinely siphoned off by rampant corruption.
The small Independent Trade Union of Medical Workers (ITUMW), an affiliate of the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine (CFTUU), is emerging as the driving force for improving the quality of health care and living standards for medical workers in Ukraine. Its growing influence is due in part to the continued support from the international labor movement, including training and technical assistance from the Solidarity Center.
Recently, a joint team from the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center’s Washington and Kyiv offices visited Zaporizhia, a city of 750,000 in eastern Ukraine, to visit clinics and hospitals and meet with local union leaders and medical workers. Read the rest of this entry »
Forum to Examine Ways to Defend Patient Care
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A panel of health care experts will discuss how health care professionals—from nurses and therapists to social workers and physicians—can defend quality care when managers and policymakers make decisions these workers know will hurt patient care.
Broadcaster Bob Edwards will moderate a special forum on “Defending Patient Care Against External Pressures: Dilemmas and Possibilities” April 15. The forum is sponsored by Professionals for the Public Interest: Associations and Unions Defending Professional Integrity (PftPI) and is being held in conjunction with the AFT Health Care Professional Issues Conference and the AFL-CIO Department for Professional Employees (DPE). The panel will take place from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Washington Court Hotel in Washington, D.C. The event is free and open to the public with advance registration. Click here to register.
Nurses, Donut Workers Join AFL-CIO Unions
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Nurses in Connecticut and Dunkin’ Donuts bakery workers in Illinois recently voted for a voice at work and formed unions with AFT and the Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU).
Both groups of workers had to fight against the type of employer intimidation, harassment and other anti-worker tactics that the Employee Free Choice Act would eliminate.
Nurses at Rockville General Hospital overcame intimidation by hospital management in an unsuccessful May election and in December voted to join AFT Connecticut.
Sandy Lambert, a nurse at Rockville for 22 years, told the Hartford Courant that during the earlier campaign, she wore a pro-union button to work and was warned by a manager that the company was keeping a list of button-wearers among the 140 nurses.
Red Cross Workers Fight for Safe Blood, Fair Contract
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At the American Red Cross headquarters in Farmington, Conn., the 225 AFSCME Local 3145 members—front-line blood services workers who make sure the blood supply is safe and sound—have been working without a contract since April.
Around the country, several bargaining units are in the same situation. They say the Red Cross is seeking to replace nurses with unlicensed supervisors, force employees to work unrealistic schedules, make workers bear the increased costs of an inferior health care plan and turn blood collection into an assembly line process.
AFSCME Local 3145 is part of a national coalition of unionized Red Cross workers who have united to improve working conditions, along with donor and blood safety supply at the Red Cross.
In Farmington, the nurses, laboratory technicians, phlebotomists, drivers and other workers are engaged in a campaign raising public awareness about how Red Cross puts profits ahead of safety. Says Local 3145 President Debra Lenentine:
The Red Cross is all about big money and bigger profits at the expense of donors and workers.
Now Labeled a Pandemic, Swine Flu Poses Threat to Health Care Workers
The H1N1 (swine flu) virus is now the first global flu pandemic in 41 years. The World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday declared the virus a Phase-6 pandemic, its highest level of warning.
The declaration means the virus has circled the globe and poses a threat to spread more rapidly among populations. So far, there have been 27,737 cases of swine flu and 141 deaths in 74 countries. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says there have been 13,000 cases of the flu and at least 27 deaths.
WHO classifies the reported cases as mild to moderate. But two other factors are causes for concern. About half of those who have died from the H1N1 virus were young and healthy people not normally susceptible to flu. Second, the virus continues to spread in the warm summer months in the Northern Hemisphere, a time when flu viruses normally disappear.
