Who Represents Nurses and the Nursing Profession?

See this post about Texas nurses debating the pros and cons of unionization. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/042308dnbusnurses.3b2e75d.html.

This is an excerpt from the article:

There hadn't been a nurses' union in Texas since the 1970s – until last month's vote brought one to a Houston hospital. Now it looks like Dallas will be the next battleground.

It was Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare Corp., the nation's third-largest publicly traded hospital system, that opened the door to nurses' unionization in this business-friendly, right-to-work state.

A March 27 vote at Tenet's Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center in Houston was the first successful union vote in Texas history, although an existing nurses' group here once operated as a union.

What will these mean for the Texas Nurses Association, which is the ANA affiliated professional association for Texas nurses? Will nurses migrate more so to unionization and union organizations now in Texas? Will the union efforts prompt nurses to join the Texas Nurses Association, which exists exclusively as a professional association?

I am not an alarmist however I will say this:

1. The majority of nurses don't support professional associations and the majority of nurses don't belong to a union. Why don't professional associations and nursing unions have the support of the 3 million RNs and LPNs in the country?    

2. Some ANA affiliated state nurses associations are running of risk of "not being considered the professional voice for nurses in a particular state." Why? If a nursing union like the CNA/NNOC or SEIU has more state-based members than a ANA-affiliated state nurses association, what happens? Does the organization with the most members in a particular state represent "nurses and the profession of nursing" in the state? Does it turn into a mines is bigger and larger than yours type thing?   

3. How does the current turmoil within the ANA Enterprise assist state nurses association which exist purely as a professional association, like the Texas Nurses Association or state nurses associations, like the Ohio Nurses Association, which exists as a union and a professional association? See my post the ANA saga and megadrama here. http://advocatefornurses.typepad.com/my2cents/2008/04/turmoil-once-ag.html

4. Survival. There's a song and verse, "only the strong can survive", "Its Called Survival." Can the ANA/State Nursing Associations, CNA/NNOC, UAN, and the SEUI all survive or thrive in today's nursing workplace? Or this is like Highlander, "There Can Be Only ONE." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highlander_(film)

What's your opinion?

See http://www.texasnurses.org/. This is the website for the Texas Nurses Association.

Comments

[april]

The nurse revolving door and shortage will continue until the nurses are supported, as a union may do.

Although, the over worked nurse is not a new situation. Since the early days of health care in the U.S. nurses have been over worked, at times living in, or next to, the hospitals which they trained at and later employed.

[latonia]

April,

I agree with you. Nurses as the largest group of healthcare professionals are not supported in the workplace for the most part. Most employers pay "lip service" and say "we stand by our nurses" or "we are a Magnet facility" or "we do this and that" but guess what most nurses are still employed at-will and have no power in the healthcare workplace. And when "something" happens, its always the nurse who is term'd, reported to the State Nursing Board, etc.

[Syaifoel Hardy]

The existance of nurses depends on the nurses themselves. We do not need others'help if we cant help ourselves. At times we seem not united which gives impression to others that nurses are not strong enough to stand on their own feet. That's why we are underestimated and even slaved in many parts of the world.

[Latonia]

I agree with you that nurses are underestimated by the powers that be. However when will the sleeper awaken?