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From the September-October 2007 issue of Union Democracy Review #170
New York nurses battle over union ties
By Herman Benson
Registered nurses in New York State Nurses Association are embroiled in a bitter factional fight over how they should be linked to organized labor. In a non-binding opinion poll, 60% of the voters, 2,312 to 1,533, rejected a proposal to disaffiliate from one AFL-CIO collective bargaining unit. But the battle continues. The urgent question is whether the association officialdom which, despite disclaimers, obviously favors disaffiliation, will resolve the disputed issue democratically or whether it will try to steamroller its opposition.
Supporters for retaining close ties to an AFL-CIO nurses unit came together in a caucus, the NYSNA Nurses for Unity. In a series of mailings and with their own website, their campaign triumphed in the opinion poll and convinced a 2/3 majority to reject the disaffiliation proposal. But the disaffiliators, in control of the Board of Directors and unwilling to accept defeat, may be determined to ride roughshod ahead. Twelve nurses who led the successful campaign against disaffiliation already face disciplinary charges. Tina Gerardi, NYSNA CEO, seems to be manipulating the charges into an obvious expulsion threat.
On its face, the charge levied against the 12 by one member was limited. They are accused of hijacking "the NYSNA name and influence" in their mailings and website by highlighting their own caucus name NYSNA Members for Unity and, according to the charge, thereby misleading voters in the opinion poll into thinking their anti-disaffiliation message was sanctioned by the administration. CEO Gerardi virtually pronounced them guilty before proceedings had even begun. In a letter to the membership she wrote that their mailings had "misled them [members] into thinking that NYSNA was opposed to disaffiliation..." In a letter to one of the defendants, she ratcheted up the severity of the charges. "The complaint," she wrote, "constitutes a charge of conduct that is detrimental or injurious to the Association... tending to injure the good name of the organization..." The wording of that message closely duplicates association guidelines which would subject the accused to suspension or expulsion.
The NYS Nurses Association, with about 34,000 members, is a complicated organization, hard to explain, hard to define, part professional association, part union. Representing over 32,000 in collective bargaining, it is the largest organization of registered nurses in the state. But as a professional association it also enrolls perhaps 2,000 others: management personnel, PR reps, researchers, and others who are licensed as nurses but not eligible for collective bargaining.
Because it represents employees in collective bargaining, the association is subject to the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act and must file reports with the U.S. Labor Department. But it is not that simple. Nothing is simple here. The association is not an ordinary union. It is also registered in the state as a not-for-profit corporation. Corporate status gives boards of directors sweeping rights to run organizations free from direct membership control. That explains why the vote on disaffiliation was not presented as a referendum binding on the board but only as an advisory "poll." In the context of the current dispute, corporate status could be decisive: will the board try to use those powers, despite the membership poll, to overpower its opposition? In a post-poll letter, CEO Gerardi made clear that the poll could be ignored. She wrote, "Decisions related to affiliation should be made at the corporate level by the Board of Directors."
For "clarity" --- nothing here is really clear --- we skip to the New York State Nurses Association's national affiliation. (Please try hard to follow this!) The NYSNA now maintains a kind of two-pronged affiliation with the American Nurses Association. The American Nurses Association, representing registered nurses nationally, is affiliated to the AFL-CIO; but, like the NYSNA, it is also part union, part professional association.
The collective bargaining wing of the American Nurses Association is a separate organization, the United American Nurses, which seems to enjoy a semi-autonomous existence as a national entity. The NYSNA is affiliated dually and separately to both the American Nurses Association and to its offshoot, the United American Nurses. The disaffiliators want to cut away from the United American Nurses but remain affiliated to the American Nurses.
At first glance, it is hard to understand why they are so insistent on breaking away from the United American Nurses, so adamant that they seem willing to turn the association upside down, even tear it apart by threatening expulsion of their critics. There is one possible explanation: a sharp difference over relations with the SEIU.
The UAN national office had been considering the possible entry into the UAN of 85,000 nurses now in the SEIU. In a letter to UAN leaders, Cheryl L Johnson, UAN president, explained that "nearly every union in the country wants to represent registered nurses [but] this will further divide and weaken the RNs." A welcome step toward unity, she noted, "was an invitation by the SEIU to discuss how we could form a stronger UAN by having [its] 85,000 RNs become members of UAN through an affiliation agreement."
But many NYS Association leaders intensely reject any negotiations for closer relations with the SEIU. In a letter to UAN activists, Barbara Crane, president of the NYSNA collective bargaining unit, explains the basis for her hostility to the SEIU: She fears that the "SEIU will be permitted to take over our national union from within...." NYSNA delegates, she wrote, "have questioned the management friendly philosophy of SEIU including its alliances with anti union conglomerates such as Wal-Mart, and its backroom 'deals' at the members' expense, such as the Nursing Homes contracts in CA." She argued that "SEIU's 'labor-management partnerships' potentially erode members' collective bargaining rightsc"
The differences between the national UAN and the NYSNA make the dispute in New York even murkier, because those in New York who opposed disaffiliation seem not to be motivated by any special love for the SEIU but only by their desire to remain part of their own national union, the UAN. Those who formed the NYSNA Nurses for Unity were prompted to form their caucus independently of the disaffiliation issue. They felt that members were not kept informed and that "democratic processes are being violated." For example: in the vote on disaffiliation, they were convinced that members were manipulated by "blatant misinformation and fear mongering."
In any event, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney hastened to defuse the disaffiliation threat and allay NYSNA misgivings over the SEIU. In a letter to Tina Gerardi, CEO of the NYSNA, Sweeney wrote, "The AFL-CIO has raised some questions and concerns regarding ... a proposed formal relationship with the Service Employees International Union. ... the discussions about the proposed relationship have ceased and there are no plans to resume them." He urged the New York Association to stay in the UAN.
At the same time, he issued a warning. The NYSUA retains its link to the AFL-CIO only through the UAN. If the association should leave the UAN, it would risk losing its AFL-CIO affiliation. The implications of that warning, although not spelled out, were clear: If the NYSNA lost the protection of its AFL-CIO connection it would be subject to raiding by those many unions that also organize nurses; and it could be cut to ribbons. After all, the compelling reason why many professional associations, like the nurses', joined the AFL-CIO was precisely to gain protection against raiding.
And so, if despite Sweeney's assurances n the SEIU, the NYSNA executive officers are still considering disaffiliation, and if they are not moved by the membership sentiment expressed in their own "poll" or by the insistent pleas of their opposition, they may be induced to reconsider by the practical demands of self-preservation.
Meanwhile, if NYSNA leaders, in the passion of the moment, should take repressive disciplinary action to silence their critics, they will be recreating their own organization in the kind of image that is found so offensive in the SEIU.
(Ann Bove, a supporter of the NY Nurses for Unity, ran for the top post of president-elect. In voting by a combination of mail and electronic balloting, fewer than 3,000 of the 34,000 members bothered to vote. Bove lost with 1,033 to 1,258 for Karen Ballard, the winner. But you would never know it by consulting the association's website which listed only the winners' names According to one member, the results were announced only verbally but not in writing; no printed report was circulated on the total votes cast, or the actual tally, or that there had been a fairly close contest for president-elect. The tally was reported in The Chief. )
23 NY Nurses face union trial threat
At last report 23 registered nurses face the threat of disciplinary trial in their New York State Nurses Association on charges arising out of their successful opposition to proposals that their union disaffiliate from the United American Nurses. Should there be an attempt to discipline them on these charges, it could result, to the best of our knowledge, to the most massive effort at the repression of members rights arising out of a single series of related events since the adoption of the LMRDA in 1959. The record up to now, according to our records, is held by Painters District 9 in New York where 18 faced repressive trial in 1961.
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