Nurses Unionize on Orlando Medical News

Nurses Unionize

By: LYNNE JETER

Posted: Monday, January 3, 2011 1:40 pm

Nurses Unionize | National Nurses Union, NNU, HCA, Osceola Regional Medical Center,

National Nurses Organizing Committee-Florida, NNOC-Florida, National Labor Relations Board, United American Nurses, Largo Medical Center, Fawcett Memorial Hospital, Healthcare Corporation of America, HCA, Rose Ann DeMoro, Bruce Rueben, Florida Hospital Association.

National Nurses United founding convention, 2009. PHOTO © NATIONAL NURSES UNITED

NNU Grows Florida Membership in Dramatic Fashion

The National Nurses Union (NNU) gained a solid foothold in Florida via HCA hospitals, beginning mid-November with registered nurses at three Central Florida hospitals voting favorably to join the nation’s largest union and professional organization of RNs.

Nurses at Osceola Regional Medical Center in Kissimmee led the movement that eventually resulted in nurses at six Florida hospitals cumulatively voting 74 percent in favor of representation by the National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC)-Florida/NNU. The National Labor Relations Board supervised the half-dozen secret-ballot elections held within three weeks.

Recap of RN votes to unionize at six Florida hospitals during 4Q10:

· Osceola Regional Medical Center in Kissimmee (354 to 30).

· Central Florida Regional Medical Center in Sanford (132 to 62).

· Community Hospital in New Port Richey (155 to 73).

· Fawcett Memorial Hospital in Port Charlotte (108 to 65).

· Largo Medical Center in Largo (170 to 77).

· Oak Hill Hospital in Brooksville (142 to 69).

The NNU, which pursues reasonable nurse workloads at member hospitals, has enjoyed a record-breaking year of membership growth, tapping into states historically unfriendly to unions, such as Florida, Nevada and Texas. Nurse-to-patient ratios are among several issues that RNs say they will address with their new, unified voice. They also plan to tackle improved procedures for “floating” and improved economic standards, including better retirement security in pensions and medical coverage. The average nursing salary in Florida is $62,270, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Specifically, Florida nurses who voted to unionize are lobbying for a state law that would reduce the number of patients assigned to each nurse like the one implemented in California in 2004.

“In a Florida hospital, you could be taking care of seven or eight patients on a floor, while in California, the maximum is five,” said union spokesperson Liz Jacobs, RN.

Last year, when NNU was formed in a merger of several nurses unions, United American Nurses president Ann Converso told Medical News in an exclusive interview that the newly created super union would target Florida, among other key states, to grow its membership.

“There are some very strong RN bargaining units in Florida,” she said. “At Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, which is an SEIU-represented (Healthcare of Florida Local 1991) facility, they have 3,700 registered nurses. As a result of that relationship, Jackson Memorial is one of few South Florida facilities with safe staffing levels, and has some of the strongest nurses I’ve seen anywhere.”

By year’s end, the now 160,000-member NNU had picked up 8,000 new members in Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nevada, Texas, and Washington, DC, with the latest Florida run accounting for 2,100 new members.

“This has been one of the biggest years for RN organizing in history, and we believe it's the beginning of a wave of RN organizing to strengthen the voice of direct-care RNs during a period of crisis for healthcare in America,” said NNU organizing director David Johnson.

Perhaps one of the most important victories for NNU occurred on Dec. 3, when RNs at two campuses of Largo Medical Center in Largo voted 69 percent in favor of unionizing. The outcome affected 400 RNs at two Pinellas County hospitals—the Largo Medical Center’s main campus and the Indian Rocks campus.
Largo RN Julia Scott noted that NNU’s success in advocating for safer ratios propelled the overwhelming support.
Mike Boccio, a cardio intensive care unit RN at Fawcett Memorial Hospital in Port Charlotte, voted to join NNU because “I’ve been a union member in the past and have appreciated the ability to have more of a voice in my workplace.”

Unions that have lost members as the manufacturing sector has dramatically downsized have found the healthcare industry’s growth appealing. Overall, union membership across the country has declined from 24 percent in 1979 to 12 percent today. Yet since 2000, membership among healthcare providers has grown to nearly 14 percent.
“Unions thrive in environments of economic uncertainty,” said Gary Chaison, professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Massachusetts, noting that union growth is often fueled by workers who believe they’ve lost control over the decision-making process.

More than 5,000 new NNU members represent 13 hospitals in Florida, Missouri, Nevada and Texas that are part of Nashville, Tenn.-based Healthcare Corporation of America (HCA), the nation’s largest for-profit hospital system and operator of 163 hospitals. More than 30 HCA hospitals are located in Florida. Since Thomas Frist Jr. established HCA in the 1960s, the company has thrice gone public, including its latest push for early 2011. The company has been private since a private investment group including Frist acquired it in a $33 billion leveraged buyout in 2006.

“We’ll continue to provide the same high quality care for which we’re known,” HCA said in a prepared statement responding to the nurses’ votes. “While we don’t believe having a union is in the best interests of our hospitals, we respect our employees’ rights to make this decision.”

After the sixth election win in Florida on Dec. 9, NNU Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro called it a moment “that heralds tremendous promise for the future,” and marks a “remarkable achievement … in our efforts to transform healthcare.”

Kim Scott, an RN at Oak Hill, the last of the six Florida hospitals to approve unionizing, said “after 22 years, I feel vindicated.”

In an American Hospital Association survey taken last year, more than half of the nation’s hospitals admitted reducing their workforce in response to the economic downturn.

Bruce Rueben, president of Florida Hospital Association since 2008, said he was “sure the nurses have the interests of the patients at heart … but management would tell you the same thing. The patient has a multifaceted interest here. They want effective, safe care, but they also want affordable care.”