If you are reading this diary look to the right colum where advertisements are and look at the two counter ads posted by the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) and the California Nurses Association (CNA). Both ads claim the other organization is unfair and not representing the interests of the members.
Let's try to shed a little light on this and I am not going to try to remain unbiased here, for I am a Registered Nurse in a profession I consider professional. I am not a member of either organization and never have been a member of either the CNA or SEIU, that at least covers full disclosure.
Nurses are the back bone of the health care industry. If you are hospitalized, it is your nurse more then likely who will ensure you recover, make it out of an ICU alive, and hopefully help your stay remain short. They are the one's trained to assess an emergency and wake a not so happy doctor at 3am to either come see the patient or give orders to ensure the patient stays healthy and free from pain where possible. Nurses are also the people who help your grandmother stay clean, and dry because of incontinence, or help your grandfather realize where he is and calm his fears because he suffers from Alzheimer's disease. I once knew a nurse, retired now who in her duties at a major hospital on the newborn nursery who risked her life not letting a street drug dealer come steal the baby of one of his customers who owed him money. She convinced his she couldn't unlock the door for him and let him out of the nursery with the child because it was Wednesday not Friday when she would be paid and could then afford to lose her job. This dispite a gun being pointed at her head.
The CNA initially started out as a branch of the American Nurses Association, the state chapter but in the 90's broke away from the ANA because it's membership felt the ANA was more representative of the "old school" manner and would not stand up for nurses as professionals. Since becoming independent, the CNA has fought for nurses helping them become recognized as the professional workers they are. They have helped reduce nursing/patient ratios, helped nurses not be forced to work long mandantory double shifts or longer because hospitals refused to hire more staff, hence nursing shift shortages, and poorer quality of care for patients and increased sentinal events (trust me you probably don't want to see me in your hospital room at 2am with a big 16 gauge needle after I have worked sixteens hours and had been forced to miss my wedding aniversery).
The dispute between the CNA and SEIU occured when the SEIU was trying to organize a health care workers union in a local hospital chain. Not a bad idea really. However the SEIU wanted to represent all the workers i.e. food service, house keeping, lab techs, nursing aides and nurse. All groups would have been blended together with no independent representation or recognition for the professional status of the nurses. The CNA came in two weeks before the elections and tried to offer to represent the nurses seperatly, the SEIU said "no way" and hence the big dispute.
The tactics used by the SEIU have been reminiscant of the old Jimmy Hoffa days of brute intimidation. In one instance at an annual labor event where many labor organizations meet and try to strengthen the labor movement, representative of the SEIU physically broke into to the meeting assaulting several attendees and threatening the head of the CNA.
Nursing is a seperate profession the requires advanced education and training with which to carry out their duties. The SEIU represents service workers like the hospital house keepers and food service workers. They have no understanding of the needs, responsibilities, and professionalism involved in our field, yet they claim they can represent our interests as well as the interests of other staff by lumping us all togather in one big block. That will not, and cannot work. It would be like asking the American Medical Association (AMA) to represent nurses and doctors equally. That would never happenen even after the nether region froze over. The behavior of the SEIU encouraged and organized by their leadership shows they have neither the credentials or professionalism to represent nurses, and as written extensivly about on MyDD from other nurses, the nurses mostly do not want their representation.
From the ad, it is easy to see the SEIU's approach for representation in lumping nursing and other profession as one big group and negotiating all as one. I call upon the SEIU leadership to accept comprimises offered by the CNA rather then hurting labor nationwide by demonstrating they are little more then street thugs of an old corrupt mafioso style labor union. As nurses, we have a right to choose our own representation.