Nursing Wounds

Nursing Wounds

December 6, 2006

The nation is in a care crisis. Between 2004 and 2014, the nation will need to fill more than 1.2 million nursing positions. “Providing nurses a collective voice through unionization” is the most direct way to raise nurses' pay, attract qualified candidates, and improve patient care. Yet under President Bush and his National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)—“easily the most anti-worker labor board in history”—more than 3 million nurses and nurse practitioners have lost their right to form a union. Research has found that “6,700 patient deaths and four million days of hospital care could be avoided each year by increasing staff of registered nurses,” which in turn would lower overall health care costs to hospitals. Recently in Nevada, approximately 800 nurses were locked out of their hospitals after trying to negotiate for increased staffing and improved patient care. They had been intimidated by union-busters, suspended for supporting unions, and been working without a contract since June. While the association representing the two Nevada hospitals said it has the best interests of the “community” in mind, the refusal to negotiate with the nurses jeopardized the community's health care.

• Nevada is suffering from a severe nursing shortage. An August study ranked the state last “among the 50 states in the number of registered nurses per 100,000 residents.” The study found that Nevada had 514 registered nurses per 100,000 residents in 2000, well below the national average of 780 nurses per 100,000. The condition of the two hospitals affected by the lockout, however, is especially abysmal. Quality Care Nevada—a project of SEIU Nevada—recently put out a report giving the care at Desert Springs Medical Center a grade of a “D” and the Valley Hospital an “F.”
  
  
• The Nevada nurses were simply demanding improved patient care. Considering the poor state of the two United Health Services (UHS) hospitals, it's not surprising that the nurses demanded better patient care. Nurses at the hospitals agreed to not strike “after elected officials in Nevada called for a 30-day cooling off period, but those nurses and other workers were locked out when they showed up for work on Monday.” UHS blamed the nurses for the breakdown, stating, “We don't want the community to be held hostage to their threats.” But the refusal of UHS to negotiate with the nurses was, in reality, the only thing preventing the community from receiving better care. The nurses wanted nurse-to-patient ratios similar to a California standard the SEIU gained in recent contracts with corporate owners of several other Las Vegas hospitals.
  
  
• Under the Bush administration the state of labor has declined. Currently, 32 million workers—25 percent of the workforce—have no right to form a union under federal, state, or local law. Even though productivity has steadily risen, the restriction on workers' rights has contributed to lower wages and a “middle class in turmoil.” A majority of today's workers say the number one issue they face is that the wages they are paid are not keeping up with the cost of living. De-unionization accounts for 15 percent of the increase in wage inequality among men over the past quarter-century, according to David Card of the University of California at Berkeley. Under the Bush administration and the National Labor Relation Board's anti-worker policies, unions have been significantly weakened.