NOTES ON NURSING
Massachusetts Nurses Derail Proposed Law Allowing Unlicensed Personnel to Give Meds The amendment that would have allowed unlicensed personnel to administer medications was withdrawn from the payment reform bill
LABOR UPDATES
State Unions Reach Tentative Agreement Covering 21,000 Workers AFSCME and MAPE have reached a tentative deal on a two-year collective bargaining agreement with the State of Minnesota.
AFL-CIO – Olympic Medal Producer Tarnishes Spirit of the Games Summer Olympic Games medal supplier, Rio Tinto—a union-busting global mining conglomerate with a track record of worker and environmental abuse—should be kept off the podium in London, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
Ruling Says Part-Time Firefighters Can Unionize The ruling, issued this week, allows firefighters in the city of Brooklyn Park to take a unionization vote later this summer. It could spur similar efforts at other fire departments in the metro area.
HEALTH CARE
The Downside of Health Care Job Growth Several provisions of the 2010 health care law aim to reduce inefficiencies by rewarding higher-value care and reducing some of the incentives for doctors to deliver more testing and care with unproven benefits. Such policies may serve to reduce health care employment, the authors argue, by “allowing us to get the same health outcomes with fewer health care workers.”