Press Release: USC Nurses Vote Overwhelmingly to Join California Nurses Association

USC Nurses Vote Overwhelmingly to Join California Nurses Association

Thursday November 30, 6:32 pm ET

RNs Unionize at Last Remaining Major Non-Union Hospital in Downtown LA
Nurses Cite Patient Safety, Nurse Turnover as Key Reasons for Vote

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 30 -- Capping a period of remarkable growth of unionization by registered nurses in downtown Los Angeles, RNs at USC University Hospital in Los Angeles yesterday voted by 61 percent to join the California Nurses Association, the state's largest RN organization and the nation's fastest-growing healthcare union, CNA announced today. USC University Hospital is one of Los Angeles' two university-affiliated major teaching hospitals, and the last remaining major hospital in the downtown LA area without unionized RNs. Just nine years ago, only one downtown hospital was unionized-a sea change in less than a decade.

The vote was conducted in a secret ballot NLRB election and will cover nearly 500 RNs at the hospital. USC University Hospital is the California flagship for Tenet Healthcare and one of Los Angeles' main teaching hospitals, training hundreds of medical students a year. All told, CNA now represents some 3500 Tenet RNs in eight different facilities.

USC has recently experienced high turnover among its RNs and extensive use of temporary staff. Nurses expressed the belief that the protections and benefits provided by their unionization vote will greatly improve recruitment and retention of nurses, and thereby improve patient care and medical education at the hospital. Specifically, USC nurses indicated a desire for strengthened enforcement at all times of California's groundbreaking safe RN- to-patient ratios law, which is essential to safe patient care, and for a USC University Hospital contract to live up to patient care improvements and wage increases established at other hospitals in the Tenet chain.

Registered nurses at USC were also motivated by the so-called "Kentucky River" decision, a recent NLRB ruling that threatens RN collective bargaining rights.

"We voted for CNA in order to improve conditions at the hospital. A greater voice will allow us to attract and keep top-quality nurses, and thereby give our patient the care they deserve-and give the medical students the education they need," said Jose Zarraga, a telemetry RN at USC. "While 'Kentucky River' is a threat that may prevent nurses from belonging to unions nationally, in Los Angeles we now have the ability to stand up and speak with one voice."

Representing more than 70,000 RNs in 45 states, CNA and its sister organization, the National Nurses Organizing Committee, is the largest association of direct-care RNs in the nation as well as the fastest-growing union of healthcare workers.