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Former Rivals Bury Hatchet to Promote Healthcare
Former Rivals Bury Hatchet to Promote Healthcare
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A news release from the California Nurses Association announced the end of a protracted dispute between itself and the Service Employees International Union. The president of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, Rose Ann DeMoro, announced that the hatchet has been buried, as the two formally bitter rivals agreed to cooperate to unionize hospital workers and promote universal health coverage.
Andrew Stern, the service employee's president, recognized that during this turbulent period, a special opportunity has arisen to take big steps toward a better healthcare system. ?We believe that our unions, together, can do far more in terms of accomplishing these goals than either of us can do on our own,? Stern said.
The two unions have long had tensions while competing to unionize registered nurses (RNs). Of the service employees' union's 1.8 million members, roughly 80,000 are nurses. The California Nurses Association currently has 85,000 nurses, and an immanent union with the United American Nurses and the Massachusetts Nurses Union will push that number to a record 150,000 members. The announcement of the union between the CNA and the S.E.I.U. is the conclusion to a year of angry conflict between the two groups. The S.E.I.U. accused nurses of sabotaging their efforts to organize 8,300 hospital workers in Ohio. The nurses union then blamed the S.E.I.U. for stalking and harassing its leaders.
?We spent a lot of time watching each other and at times competing with each other, and now we think it?s the right time to work together,? Stern said.
Despite harshly cutting remarks made by DeMoro only months ago, she stated that the NCA/NNOC strive to create a single, nationwide union for RNs by working with nurses from the S.E.I.U. ?We have a moment to seize,? she said. ?We have to show hospitals that health care reform is the right thing to do.?
The service employees and the California nurses have agreed to cooperate to promote unionization of many American hospitals, focusing on the largest hospital systems. It is expected that most nurses will join the nurses' union and other employees will join the S.E.I.U. The two will also coordinate in contract talks and will jointly push for legislation that will make it easier to unionize and will allow states to adopt single-payer healthcare systems.
The two unions also agreed they would no longer seek to displace each other's presence at various workplaces.
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