3 of nation's largest nursing unions merge, will target Dallas-Fort Worth area
February 19, 2009
The three unions to merge are the United American Nurses, California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee and the Massachusetts Nurses Association. Their new, 150,000-member association will be called the United American Nurses-National Nurses Organizing Committee.
Written by Jason Roberson, The Dallas Morning News
Three of the nation's largest nursing unions on Wednesday announced a merger to ramp up unionization efforts across the country, including North Texas.
The group already has paid union boosters based in Dallas but now will add more, according to the union's chief regional negotiator. He would not disclose how many paid organizers are currently living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
The three unions to merge are the United American Nurses, California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee and the Massachusetts Nurses Association. Their new, 150,000-member association will be called the United American Nurses-National Nurses Organizing Committee.
"We have an aggressive organizing program throughout the state of Texas," said Fernando Losada, the union's collective bargaining director, who is responsible for Texas. "We think this new uniting of nursing organizations will help us do that even more so."
Losada said that rank-and-file nurses in Texas will be given more financial support to push for better nurse-to-patient staffing ratios, which has become the primary rallying cry for nurses.
Joan Clark, chief nurse executive for Arlington-based Texas Health Resources Inc., North Texas' largest hospital system, said her nurses "have been getting [union] mailers at their homes."
"It has been slowly escalating," she said.
"Our job, whenever there's an organizing effort, is to educate staff – make sure they get a balanced view," Clark said.
She also said hospital executives make sure that nurses are involved in decision-making.
In March, nurses at Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center in Houston became the first in Texas to vote to unionize. The hospital is owned by Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare Corp., the nation's third-largest publicly traded hospital system.
The Houston vote is important to the Dallas area because it could indicate how similar union votes might end here. Under Tenet's agreement with the unions, nurses at the company's Dallas-based hospitals cannot vote to form a union until 2010.
"We are surprised at the merger and will be working with representatives to discuss how this announcement affects our current agreement," said David Matthews, Tenet spokesman. "As always, Tenet believes it would be best to work with our employees without the involvement of a union."
Dr. Rosemary Luquire, chief nursing officer at Baylor Health Care System, said she's not worried.
"I know my fellow nurses here at Baylor are fully capable of speaking for themselves as professionals and partnering with our hospitals to provide excellent care and a great working environment," Luquire said. "We have a culture that empowers nurses to be involved in decision-making at the unit, hospital and system level."
Related Stories
Fair Use Notice
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a "fair use" of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond "fair use", you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.