Research Medical Center in Kansas City, MO, just became the largest unionized hospital in the state. This brings the total added to the ranks of nurses unionized by National Nurses United (NNU) this year to 4500. These new “recruits” hail from Missouri, Texas, Nevada and Illinois. NNU was formed last year by the merger of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, United American Nurses, and Massachusetts Nurses Association. In Pennsylvania, after a two-year organizing campaign that included coercive tactics and a neutrality agreement, NNU finally pulled the plug on the campaign begun by the CNA. The organizers lost a consent election in July 2009, but filed a series of objections, and eventually talked Hahnemann University Hospital management into disregarding the results and holding another election. Having had enough, a nurse stepped forward in January 2010 with the help of National Right To Work Foundation to file charges against CNA officials and Hahnemann for staging another unionization drive over the wishes of a majority of hospital employees. The organizers finally threw in the towel and withdrew their petition.
