Health Care Unions In California Split Over Nurse-To-
Patient Ratios

Huffington Post
Posted: 06/16/2012 7:45 pm Updated: 06/16/2012 9:10 pm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/16/health-care-unions-california-nurse-to-patient-ratio_n_1602969.html

One labor union’s position on nurse-to-patient ratios
in California hospitals has outraged other unions that
represent registered nurses in the state.

In California, hospitals are required by law to
maintain certain nurse-to-patient ratios at all times
-- a hard-won legal stipulation that went into effect
in 2004 and has wide support among nurses as well as
patient advocates in the state.

Although labor groups also strongly back the ratio law,
the Service Employees International Union-United
Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), which represents
hospital workers of all kinds, signaled this week that
in the face of state budget cuts to hospitals it might
be willing to partially sacrifice mandated ratios.

During a call with other labor leaders on Thursday,
SEIU-UHW President Dave Regan suggested that the
California Labor Federation, an alliance of the state’s
unions, should not stand in the way of any new
legislation that would temporarily suspend ratios while
nurses are on meals and breaks, according to RoseAnn
DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United,
who was on the call.

DeMoro said that eliminating the ratios during breaks
would undermine or even gut the ratio law entirely,
since breaks in large hospitals occur all the time.
Calling the ratio law a "holy grail" for nurses, she
said that she considered the recommendation an affront
to her own union. The union leaders on the call voted
overwhelmingly against the recommendation, she said.

"This is just historically unprecedented," DeMoro said.
"These are bedrock labor issues -- workplace safety,
public safety ... This is a fundamental issue to these
nurses. He was attempting to undo a fundamental
reform."

Steve Trossman, a spokesman for SEIU-UHW, said that the
union supports ratios and believes they should remain
in place, and that Regan expressed his support for
nurses ratios on the call. He said the union voted that
the federation stand "neutral" on ratios during breaks
only because of California’s budget situation. A large
portion of the union’s members are in lower wage
hospital jobs, and Trossman said many of them, such as
maintenance and food-service workers, could end up
losing their positions.

"The reality is that front-line hospital workers are
going to bear the brunt of [cuts] -- we think there
will be hundreds if not thousands of layoffs," he said.
"When you’re in a budget situation like this,
everything is worth taking a look at. That’s what we
did."

The president of the National Union of Healthcare
Workers (NUHW), which is not part of the state labor
federation, said he was also angered by the suggestion
that unions not fully support the ratios during breaks.

"It’s outrageous,” said Sal Rosselli, whose union was
formed after a split from SEIU-UHW. "In the private-
sector hospital industry, profits are unprecedented.
Suspending these ratios that we all fought for for
years ... the industry has been trying to do this."

Trossman said the significance of the SEIU-UHW’s vote
on the matter has been blown out of proportion. “It was
quickly rejected," he noted. “We move on." And despite
the drama surrounding the call, there is no imminent
danger of nurses losing their ratios during breaks or
otherwise, as no such legislation has been introduced.

Yet DeMoro, who said her union has been "inundated"
with emails from nurses due to Thursday’s call, doesn’t
seem likely to forget the incident. She said that
rather than show solidarity among labor groups, the
vote "pit nurses against low-wage workers."

"It might signal some of the trouble that the labor
movement is in," she said.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story
incorrectly listed RoseAnn Demoro's first name as
Roseanne.

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