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N.J. Nurses Join to Reform Health Care

Posted on: Friday, 24 February 2006, 15:00 CST

By Bob Groves, The Record, Hackensack, N.J.

Feb. 24--Thousands of unionized nurses in New Jersey and across the nation joined forces Thursday to fight for labor rights and to fix the country's "dangerously broken" health care system.

Eight unions representing more than 200,000 registered nurses formed an alliance called RNs Working Together to give members more bargaining muscle in their dealings with hospitals, bureaucrats and legislators.

The new coalition -- which includes the Health Professionals and Allied Employees, the union of 11,000 nurses and other hospital workers in New Jersey -- awaits approval by the AFL-CIO at its winter meeting next week in San Diego.

"Our first initiative is to protect the rights of nurses, to advocate for nurses and patients," Ann Twomey, president of HPAE, said during a national teleconference with reporters and several union leaders.

The alliance is needed because some union rights that nurses have had for more than 30 years "may be suddenly taken away," she said.

An immediate concern, she said, is a pending decision by federal officials on whether nurses who are put in charge of other employees, even temporarily, are considered supervisors and could lose their union protection in future contracts.

A ruling on this by the National Labor Relations Board within the next few months "could affect the right of thousands of nurses to organize," Twomey said.

The newly formed coalition's broader issue is that the U.S. health care system is broken, Cheryl L. Johnson, president of the United American Nurses union, said during the teleconference. The group has 115,000 members nationwide.

"We don't have the world's best, safest health care system; we have the world's costliest health care system," Johnson said.

"While nurses are working harder, hospitals have grown ever more rigid, wasteful and disdainful of nurses," Johnson said.

"We can't count on hospitals to do the right thing. We can fix what is wrong by giving nurses a stronger voice," she said.

Ron Czajkowski, spokesman for the New Jersey Hospital Association said that nurses are appreciated for their hard work.

"No one doubts they are a critically important part of the health care team," and hospitals have increased wages and improved the workplace accordingly, Czajkowski said Thursday.

Nurses in New Jersey will negotiate new contracts at 10 hospitals this year, and management is ready to listen to their concerns and bargain in good faith, he said.

"The greatest issues aren't with the nurses, but with the changing marketplace" of decreased funding and increased hospital charity care, Czajkowski said.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Record, Hackensack, N.J.

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Source: The Record - Hackensack, New Jersey

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