The 12,000 Minnesota nurses that staged a one-day strike several weeks ago threatened again to launch an open-ended strike, endangering patients across the state. The Minnesota Nurses Association (part of the new National Nurses United) settled the dispute, choosing to retain pension benefits in exchange for giving up their “rallying cry” issue of standardized staffing ratios. (Seems a bit self-serving, doesn’t it?) This recent lead story is just the tip of a growing iceberg. In recent weeks, • Nurses rejected a contract at Washington Hospital Center in D.C., and are preparing a strike vote. • Negotiations (and rhetoric) escalated between SEIU Local 49 and McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center in Springfield, OR. • Seven unions and the Red Cross squared off with a round of strikes and lock-outs across six states. • Watsonville Community Hospital nurses picketed during negotiations at their Silicon Valley hospital. • North Adams Regional Hospital in Massachusetts filed a grievance against the local chapter of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, alleging the union refuses “to bargain in good faith.” • With a recent sweep of 1900 nurses in 5 South & West Texas hospitals under their belt, unions are now gunning for Dallas area health care employees. “I think it’s only a matter of time before we see nursing unions in Dallas,” said Dan Rodriguez, vice president of labor relations for Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare Corp. If health care unions continue to do to health care what public employee unions have done to state and municipal governments, no amount of “health care reform” will stem the tide of reduction of quality and higher costs.
