RN unions vow to battle NLRB ruling

In a move likely to spark nationwide RN protests, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has found that permanent charge nurses at Taylor, MI-based Oakwood Heritage Hospital were indeed supervisors, making those nurses and others like them ineligible for union representation. In two other related cases regarding the Golden Crest Healthcare Center nursing home and manufacturer Croft Metals, the board found that the employees in question were not supervisors. While the NLRB found that rotating charge nurses weren't really in charge, it held that the work of permanent charge nurses met the definition of supervisor outlined in the National Labor Relations Act. The two dissenters on the NLRB, for their part, argued that while charge nurses assign other nurses to patients, they don't set work hours, establish employee status or designate work sites, making them "minor supervisors whom Congress clearly did not intend" to include in this category.

In response to the ruling, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, which represents 70,000 nurses in 44 states, plans to take aggressive action to fight the decision, which it says is designed to throttle nurse attempts to unionize--and by implication, silence nurses whose jobs would be threatened if they spoke out regarding patient safety concerns. CNA/NNOC is vowing that nurses at any facility it represents will strike if employers try to make use of the new decision. It also plans to hold a series of public protests across the U.S. starting on October 5. Ultimately, working with the AFL-CIO and other nursing groups, it hopes to see Congress overturn the decision.

To get the details on the controversy:
- read a summary of the NLRB decision
- check out the CNA/NNOC release