Fighting Back: Nurses Fight for Patients, Jobs, Union Rights

CWA nurses in Buffalo, N.Y., are at the forefront of the battle to preserve quality patient care, jobs and workers' rights against the backdrop of a worsening health care crisis.

On top of the staffing shortages that are already making hospital jobs harder than ever, the National Labor Relations Board decided in October in the "Kentucky River" cases to make it easier for employers to designate nurses as "supervisors." Doing so could exempt nurses of their right to be represented by a union.

And now the health care community in Buffalo, including the 4,600 members of CWA Local 1168, is fighting to keep the state from shutting down three major hospitals and their busy emergency rooms in the area. Statewide, nine hospitals are targeted for closure to reduce costs.

"There are almost 4,000 CWA members at risk," said Local 1168 President John Klein. "If the hospitals close, it will create a situation of chaos for health care in western New York."

CWA members, joined by other union activists, have rallied in Buffalo and on Dec. 13 traveled five hours to Albany to demonstrate outside the state capitol. Local 1168 also has taken out print and broadcast ads and is urging the community to put pressure on lawmakers.

The state legislature wrapped up its session in December without voting down the recommendations, effectively accepting the closures by default. The battle isn't over, however. CWA and other unions are now pushing the new legislature and new Gov. Eliot Spitzer to keep the hospitals open.

Federally, Democratic leaders have condemned the NLRB decision and Sen. Edward Kennedy, incoming chairman of the Senate labor committee, told thousands of union activists rallying in Washington in December that the new leadership will fight to overturn Kentucky River. Although the cases that led to the ruling involved nurses, lawyers say the decision could allow countless other employers to re-classify workers as supervisors, removing them from the bargaining unit, even if supervisory duties are just a tiny fraction of their job description.

"At a time when working families are struggling hard to make ends meet and obviously are not receiving their fair share of the nation's economic growth, the NLRB is rubbing salt in the wound," Kennedy said. "Instead of protecting the rights of employees, the board is cutting them loose and denying them their long-standing rights in the workplace."

Between the NLRB ruling and the state Commission on Health Care Facilities proposal to close the hospitals, CWA's Klein said nurses feel under siege. It feels as if, "They can't outsource, so they're going to make things miserable for us," he said.

Even though the Buffalo hospitals haven't acted on the NLRB decision, he said nurses fear that it could happen down the road. And Klein said that's something for the community at large to worry about.

"Nurses who are in a union aren't afraid to speak out for their patients because they're protected by the union," he said. "In non-union facilities, nurses aren't as willing to point out deficiencies. As we say, 'The patient is our focus. The union is our voice.'"

The good news, Klein said, is that some of the area's non-represented health care workers have taken notice of their unionized colleagues' freedom to speak up and fight back against the NLRB decision and attempt to shut down area hospitals.

"We've gotten several inquiries," he said. "They've seen the importance of having a union backing them."          

CWA is a founding member of RNs Working Together, the AFL-CIO Industry Coordinating Committee for registered nurses. The group is mobilizing nurses nationwide around the Kentucky River decisions and has organized public rallies and other news events to focus public attention on union nurses' concerns for quality patient care.