Labor Unions (Page 34)

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In: Healthcare, Hospitals, Labor Unions, Nurses

A New York Times writer is doing a Sunday business feature on Hospitals using the Toyota “Lean” model and stumbled across the MNA-created YouTube video below. So now MN Nurses are going to have a national voice in the story speaking out about unsafe staffing and hospitals putting profits ahead of patients. Like we said, our fight for safe staffing is just beginning!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbPOO1hNX10]
… Read more about: Toyota Lean, Hospitals, The New York Times, MNA and YouTube  »

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In: Labor Unions, Nurses Strike

You Can’t Care for Patients with Bayonets: Lessons From History

As the contract impasse between the Twin Cities Hospitals (TCH) and the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) has heated up, journalists, commentators, and interested bystanders have looked increasingly to history for insights and lessons.  The participation of more than 12,000 nurses in the one-day strike of June 10 was widely described as the “largest” nurses’ strike in American history.  As the nurses voted on June 18 to authorize a second, open-ended strike, the search for historical references expanded.  In revisiting the Minneapolis Teamsters’ strike of 1934 and the Hormel strike of 1985-86, journalist Betsy Sundquist (“Possibility of Nurse Strike Recalls Old Confrontations,” FINANCE AND COMMERCE, June 18, 2010) invoked the shibboleth of the National Guard in asking whether Governor Pawlenty might order their intervention in a prolonged nurses’ strike. 
… Read more about: Guest Post: Labor Expert Peter Rachleff  »

On:
In: Bargaining, Hospitals, Labor Unions, Nurses, Nursing, Organizing

By Nellie Munn, RN

Twelve thousand nurses in the Twin Cities are fending off a well-coordinated attack by corporate health care interests to diminish the power of our union. In a metropolitan area with one of the highest densities of organized nurses in the country, we know that if the employers take down the Minnesota Nurses Association, they can take down anyone.

The nurses authorized a one-day strike last week by more than 90 percent of 9,200 voting. Negotiations with 14 Twin Cities hospitals owned by six corporations started in March, but little actual back and forth has taken place.
… Read more about: The National Perspective from a MNA RN  »