Minnesota Nurses Join UAN

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/03/31/minnesota-nurses-join-uan/

by James Parks, Mar 31, 2008

For the third time in three years, nurses at a hospital owned by Allina Hospitals & Clinics gained a voice on the job by voting to join the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA), an affiliate of the United American Nurses (UAN). The 140 registered nurses at Buffalo Hospital in Buffalo, Minn., overwhelmingly supported the union at the end of last month.

Noting that this was the fourth time Buffalo nurses had tried to vote for a union, Gale Syverson, a 22-year RN at the hospital, says:

This was the right time.

The nurses say they joined the union because they want more say in the care of patients. The hospital had begun a series of changes that were confusing and jeopardizing patient care, and as RN Kathy Windom says:

We wanted a say in the changes.

The election was held under an expedited process negotiated between MNA and Buffalo Hospital known as a “consent election.” The two sides agreed to rules that would allow the election to proceed smoothly and swiftly. Among other things, Allina agreed to not classify nurses who occasionally direct other workers as supervisors, which would deny them the right to join a union. In exchange, MNA organizers agreed to not disparage Allina and to convey their views about union membership in a positive and factual manner.

In three cases collectively known as Oakwood after the lead case, Oakwood Healthcare Inc., the Republican-dominated National Labor Relations Board in 2006 reinterpreted the definition of “supervisor” in a way that greatly expanded the number and type of workers who can be classified as supervisors. The expanded definition applies to workers in every industry and means up to 8 million workers, including nurses, building trades workers, newspaper and television employees and others, may be classified as supervisors and barred from joining unions.

Allina, a not-for-profit chain of 11 hospitals and 55 clinics throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin, employs some 23,000 people.