NY Nurse December 2015/January 2016

Beck Notification

If you are represented for collective bargaining by NYSNA, you have the right to be or stay a nonmember and pay an agency fee equivalent to dues. As a nonmember, you are entitled to object to paying for activities unrelated to the association’s duties as a bargaining agent and to obtain a reduction in fees for such activities. The agency fee will include costs incurred by the union for expenditures related to collective bargaining, contract administration, grievances and arbitration, and other matters affecting wages, hours, and other conditions of employment.

North Country holiday celebration

Capital Region nurses celebrated a year of successes and renewed their commitment to protect quality patient care at the Inter-regional meeting held on December 8 in Schenectady.

For NYSNA nurses at Nathan Littauer Hospital, a 74-bed facility in Gloversville, there was no alternative. After multiple rounds of bargaining with no progress on key priorities, the nurses carried out a one-day unfair labor practice strike on January 6.

Nominations are being accepted for the following NYSNA offices and positions: President, First Vice President, Treasurer, five (5) Directors at Large, Southeastern Regional Director, Eastern Regional Director, and Western Regional Director.

Nominations forms, Consent to Serve forms, and Candidate Statement forms must be submitted no later than April 1, 2016.

TERMS OF OFFICE

NYSNA members in Western New York have a new headquarters in the heart of downtown Buffalo. The office, located on the third floor of 617 Main Street, is centrally located and aims to be a hub for nurses and our community and political allies.

A delegation of healthcare workers, including NYSNA nurses and SEIU1199 doctors and social workers, traveled to Cuba in November to study that nation’s health system. The research delegation met with public health officials, doctors, nurses, teachers, trade unionists and community groups to learn about Cuba’s approach to providing healthcare.

In the 54 years during which Irmatrude Grant, RN, worked at NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation (NYCH+H), she witnessed the evolution of the city’s public health system. She retired in December, but this extraordinary RN has no plans to sit back.

Ms. Grant’s nursing experience encompassed pediatrics as well as obstetrics and gynecology. She began as a Nurse’s Aide at Kings County Hospital in 1961, went on to earn LPN, RN and two Masters degrees.

Jalisa Saud, RN and NYSNA young nurse leader, (back row, second from right) joined Tom Morello and other Rock and Roll luminaries, as he delivered a message of solidarity and peace to concertgoers during the “Imagine: John Lennon 75th Birthday Concert,” at Madison Square Garden on December 5.

RNs in NYC Health and Hospitals facilities, clinics and mayorals are receiving lump sum checks on Friday, January 29, for retroactive pay due under their contract

This came in the aftermath of the submission of a petition with more than 4,600 RN signatures that called on the New York City Council to investigate NYCH+H pay practices. Notices were received by RNs that retroactive payments due to be paid on December 21, 2015, would be delayed to February 12, 2016.

But the NYSNA nurse action spurred a swift response, pushing up the date of payment.

As reported in the June issue of New York Nurse, New York City opted not to renew agreements with private contractors Corizon, Inc. (formerly Prison Health Services) and Damian Family Care Centers for provision of health services to the 70,000 people who are held in the city’s correctional system and Rikers Island Jail each year. The Corizon contract, initiated by Mayor Giuliani 14 years ago, expired at year-end 2015; the Damian agreement expires this coming August. Management of correctional health services is returning to the city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation.

Over past months, NYSNA members across New York have been stepping up to the union’s Safe Staffing Captains program, an initiative to document the data on nurse-to-patient ratios for contract enforcement — to make sure that management lives up to our agreements. The program relies on Safe Staffing Captains — member volunteers — to document the data for their shifts by recording daily reports of the real time staffing in their units.

The close of 2015 saw the retirement of many long-serving Long Island nurses, leaving a void for co-workers and patients alike. While they will be missed in the halls of their hospitals, their service and impact will continue to be felt as they move into the next phase of their lives. Among them were three NYSNA member leaders who had the opportunity to take advantage of early retirement options negotiated as part of their collective bargaining agreements.

Few can keep pace with Yasmine Beausejour, RN, Northwell Health System’s Franklin Hospital. She works in her hospital’s 2C Med/Surg Telemetry unit and is designated wound care “champion” there; she is also Safe Staffing Captain on the unit. This indefatigable nurse is a constant and vocal advocate for patients.

Against professional advice and the interests of NYSNA nurses and others who work in the hospital, the Massena Town Council voted on December 16 to allow Massena Memorial Hospital (MMH) to move forward with a plan to go private and convert the municipal facility to an independent non-profit. The nurses have vowed to continue to fight the conversion.

The stark reality at Oneida Healthcare Center (OHC) for nurses in the Med/Surg unit is this: patient loads of 9, 10 or even more. Throughout several months of bargaining, the hospital’s nurses have been sounding the alarm about the impact of these patient assignments on the quality and safety of care. Yet management has repeatedly denied this reality, rebuffing NYSNA proposals for improving staffing. Nurses have emphasized that the hospital’s ability to attract and retain experienced nurses is severely undercut by these staffing levels.

NYSNA joined forces with the healthcare workers of 1199SEIU at seven chronic dialysis facilities in Brooklyn, Bronx and New Rochelle, with informational picketing on January 15. The message: protect quality patient care with fair contracts for nurses and healthcare workers.

NYSNA members at Vassar Brothers Medical Center (VBMC) in Poughkeepsie started the New Year with a new contract and a good deal to celebrate. The 750 nurses brought more than ten months of negotiations to a close late on December 14, and on December 22 ratified the agreement with an overwhelming majority.

VBMC nurses had been working without a contract since their last agreement expired April 30, 2015.

As a Registered Nurse in the Emergency Room, I treated hundreds of women, men, and children who fell victim to gun violence. I cared for and comforted people whose bodies were broken by bullets — this wasn’t violence that I just read about in the newspaper, it was something I experienced in vivid crimson every day.

Nurses know that gun violence is more than fodder for partisan debate and political stump speeches; it’s an epidemic that threatens the health and wellbeing of our patients and their families.

NYSNA contracts are fought and won in the realm of collective bargaining where preparation is extensive: staff research on the economics of proposals, on facilities and corporate profiles; lawyers argue and defend our positions; communications gets the word out and circulating; evidentiary support is gathered from POAs and presented with the backdrop of peer-review standards; staffing figures are compiled — these data are essential to bargaining, not to mention essential to our state licensure.

One Christmas, we nurses decided — as we always do — to celebrate the holiday at work: everyone cooking to make it special, as we spent it with our “work families.” There was a patient who was a victim of a crime. She was one of our favorites, grateful for any small thing and possessing years of experiences and stories to tell. We shared our meal with her and bought her a beautiful shawl which she wore every day until she left the hospital.