NY Nurse July/August 2014

1199 contract win

With our many congratulations, 1199SEIU reached agreement with the League of Voluntary Hospitals and Homes in July. 1199’s contract campaign included walks-in-on-the-boss, pickets and rallies. No benefit takeaways, a significant wage increase and a more fair process for nonunion workers to organize in outpatient clinics were agreed upon.

Presby RNs win Safe Staffing victory

Overcrowding at Presbyterian’s Children’s Hospital ED, documented by 170 POAs, led to a big staffing win for RNs. A total of nine new positions were added.

We know that there are no substitutes for direct patient contact – the human connection – that characterizes our professional work. Touch, observation and treatment are central to nursing. Electronic Medical Records, like all other forms of technology and artificial intelligence, has the potential for flaw, error and abuse. We need to maintain a critical perspective as computer and EMR systems do, in fact, interfere with the nursing process and practice.

On block after block, businesses are shuttered, homes foreclosed by the thousands. Detroit is a city in bankruptcy, a city on the auction block, its population fighting demise at every turn. So bad are conditions that 17,000 households and small businesses were without water in July, a shutoff caused by profound poverty in the form of inability to pay the water bill. That leaves some children with no water with which to brush their teeth.

I have been a neurosurgical operating room nurse at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx for 32 years. The work is not easy; it can be stressful, exhausting, but definitely is challenging and rewarding, as well. After many years, I thought I had seen it all, until the separation of the Aquirre craniopagus conjoined twins 10 years ago.

There is much to celebrate in the new contract won by HHC/Mayorals in New York City. The terms are exceptionally good; two new funds – for education and training and for child and elder care – are very meaningful additions. The contract lays a “foundation for a strong future,” said Anne Bové, RN, Bellevue Hospital Center and president of NYSNA’s HHC/Mayorals Executive Council.

NYSNA continues to pick up steam around the state, pulling together large numbers of members and supporters. “Firsts” were seen in the Capital Region, where a first bargaining conference was convened; and a first interregional was carried out in Olean. Contract votes and filings to join the union filled out a summer season of union strength and solidarity.

We see it every day, in most units, on virtually every floor: patients arriving at the hospital with greater acuities and in need of comprehensive care. We have been saying for the last several years that healthcare delayed would have dire results. Well, that’s exactly what’s happening.

Our focus on private bargaining got more intense on June 18 when members gathered in midtown Manhattan to meet and review priorities, approaches and schedules at 17 private hospitals. NYSNA’s Bargaining Platform was shared and discussed.

This important, concise document sets forth five key goals that serve as a framework for all our negotiations:

One of the most famous quotes in US history is John F. Kennedy’s appeal to the American people when he said: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

Sounds corny?

The ’60s ushered in an age of idealism. Many people saw JFK as an icon of hope, right or wrong. More importantly, people all over the world were in motion: fighting injustice, promoting free thinking, working together to make a better world.