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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (April 5, 2013)
Oregon Nurses Association joins American Federation of Teachers By DON McINTOSH Associate Editor At a specially-called delegates meeting March 16 in Portland, elected officers of 10,400-member Oregon Nurses Association (ONA) ratified a proposal to affiliate with 850,000- member American Federation of Teachers (AFT). The move is the latest in a series of realignments in which unionized nurses have consolidated into several national formations. Benefits of belonging RN Paul Goldberg, ONA’s assistant executive director of labor relations, said affiliating with AFT will enhance the voice and power of nurses within Oregon and across the country, at a time when hospitals are consolidating and becoming more formidable adver- saries. Goldberg said nurses are headed for turbulence with the changes to the health care industry brought about by the Affordable Care Act. Hospitals are reacting to uncertainty with cost-cut- ting measures, Goldberg said, includ- ing tightened nurse staffing levels, and efforts to have less skilled workers do the work of RNs. Though designated as AFT Local 5905, ONA remains autonomous, keep- ing its name, leadership, staff, and by- laws. It also continues as a part of NFN, which becomes a new unit of AFT. ONA thus becomes the fourth au- tonomous AFT affiliate in Oregon. The others are 8,700-member AFT-Oregon (which represents community college faculty and support staff at K-12 schools); 18,600-member Oregon School Employees Association (OSEA), an independent union of K-12 classified employees that joined AFT in 2008; and 3,100-member Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Pro- fessionals, which represents most RNs at Kaiser Permanente. [ONA represents 10,400 RNs in about 50 separate bar- gaining units around the state, includ- ing Oregon Health and Science Uni- versity (OHSU), and most hospitals in the Providence chain.] Through all the reorganizations, ONA never left the Oregon AFL-CIO. ONA’s affiliation brings AFT’s mem- bership total within the Oregon AFL- CIO to 40,800; that makes AFT the 110,000-member state federation’s most populous union. Legacy Health Systems is the only major hospital chain in the Portland area where RNs are nonunion, and outside Portland, Salem Hospital is the only other large hospital with nonunion RNs. Fracture and reunion as nurses unions shift alignments Once upon a time, “nurse organi- zation” meant the American Nurses Association (ANA). ANA is a pro- fessional association for registered nurses (RNs), and has state-level af- filiates, like ONA. But in recent decades, many RNs came to feel they needed not just professional de- velopment but the workplace protec- tions of a collective bargaining agreement. Some state ANA affili- ates became more like labor unions. That created tension within the ANA, which also had as members academ- ics and RNs in management. That tension led the California Nurses As- sociation (CNA) to leave ANA in 1995. So in 1999, United American Nurses (UAN) was formed as the union wing of the ANA for state af- filiates engaged in collective bar- gaining. Meanwhile, national unions like the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Service Employees Interna- tional Union (SEIU), United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), and the Teamsters had been engag- ing in their own organizing cam- paigns among RNs. With so many unions seeking to represent RNs, conflicts sometime arose, along with accusations of “raiding.” In union parlance, a raid is an attempt by one union to represent workers who are already represented by another union. UAN affiliated with the national AFL-CIO in 2001, in part to stop raiding, since AFL-CIO has rules barring affiliated unions from raiding each other. Then in 2005, SEIU, UFCW, the Teamsters, and several other unions left the AFL-CIO. Though UAN contemplated joining them, it re- mained in the AFL-CIO. CNA affili- ated with the AFL-CIO in 2006. In 2007, amid fears that UAN leaders were considering joining SEIU (and leaving the AFL-CIO), UAN affiliates in Montana, New York, Ohio, Washington, and Oregon (ONA) left. The following year they formed a new group, the National Federation of Nurses (NFN). NFN sought to affiliate with the AFL-CIO, but AFL-CIO rules say breakaway groups can’t get their own charter for at least three years. CNA and its National Nurses Or- ganizing Committee then merged with UAN and Massachusetts Nurses Association to form National Nurses United (NNU) in December 2009. Last year, NFN’s New York affil- iate voted to secede. In February, NFN announced af- filiation with AFT, which was then ratified by its remaining affiliates. ONA was the final NFN affiliate to approve joining AFT. The addition of the four NFN affiliates adds 35,000 members, bringing AFT’s health care division to 82,000. Voters recall water district commissioner in union-backed campaign Residents of the Clackamas River Water (CRW) District voted over- whelmingly March 19 to recall Com- missioner Patricia Holloway. The vote was 8,155 to 563. Turnout in the special election was 28.4 percent. CRW serves about 51,400 homes in Clackamas County, primarily in Oregon City. Thirty front-line employees of the water district are represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 350. Following years of internal fighting, expensive lawsuits, and gen- eral dysfunction among the five-mem- ber volunteer Board of Commissioners, late last year union workers took a unanimous vote of “no confidence” in the entire board and called on all its members to resign. Two commission- ers — Tami Kehoe and Barbara Kem- per — did so. Holloway and Grafton Sterling did not. [In mid-July, Mike Cardwell, who had been a commis- sioner since 2001, resigned, leaving the board with a 2-2 split.] Union officials pointed to Holloway and Sterling as instigators of most of the internal problems. Holloway has $17 a month coverage includes: K NOW Y OUR R IGHTS I F YOUR EMPLOYER FORCES served on the board for seven years. That prompted water district ratepayer Naomi Angier, a member of sister AFSCME Local 88, to file for an election to recall the two commission- ers. She got support from the North- west Oregon Labor Council and the Oregon AFL-CIO’s constituency group, Working America. Together, they collected more than 5,000 signa- tures for the recall petitions. A clerical error, however, disqualified the Sterling petition. Since then, three interim board members were appointed to the water district by the Clackamas County Board of Commissioners. They are Larry Sowa, a former county commis- sioner, Kenneth Humberston, and Hugh Kalani. They will serve until an election can be held. The water board commissioners will appoint someone to serve the last two years of Holloway’s term, as soon as the election is certified. YOU TO WORK IN DANGEROUS Low Prices! WORK CONDITIONS YOU CAN MAKE A CONFIDENTIAL OSHA BY CALLING (800) 922-2689. REPORT TO www.legalshield.com/info/randallnix APRIL 5, 2013 NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS Mon-Fri 9-6, Sat 9:30-5:30, Sun 12-6 PAGE 9
