Wednesday, January 18, 2006

The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon), January 11, 2006, Wednesday

Copyright 2006 The Oregonian
All Rights Reserved
The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)

January 11, 2006 Wednesday
Sunrise Edition

SECTION: Business; Pg. B01

HEADLINE: Nurses will vote on union in Roseburg

BYLINE: BRENT HUNSBERGER, The Oregonian

BODY:
SUMMARY: Work force An affirmative vote would make the nurses at Mercy Medical Center part of a growing labor movement
More than 300 nurses at Mercy Medical Center in Roseburg will cast ballots today on whether to join the state's largest nursing union.
The vote has the potential to turn into a rare win for the labor movement in Oregon. If the majority opt to join the Oregon Nurses Association, it would mark the second-largest successful vote for a private union in Oregon this decade. Only the Teamsters' successful drive last year to organize 486 workers at Smith Frozen Foods Inc. in Weston was larger.
It would also mark the largest organization of nurses in a quarter century for either of the state's nursing unions --the 10,000-member Oregon Nurses Association or the 2,700-member Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, organizers said.
The share of the U.S. work force belonging to a labor union has declined from 30 percent in 1964 to 12.5 percent today, as organized labor has struggled to find an identity in the modern corporate world. The most successful private unions have moved away from traditional blue-collar fields and are increasingly targeting service and health occupations, such as janitors and nurses.
Nationwide, nurses are more likely to be organized than workers in other industries. Registered nurses boast a union membership rate of about 19 percent, labor experts say, which makes them half again more likely to be unionized than workers in all U.S. industries.
Labor experts say the trend highlights the fertile ground the health care industry represents for unions. A growing work force, employer consolidation, a worker shortage and an inability to send health-care jobs offshore make the industry a good target for organizing.
"Nurses are kind of primed to be unionized," said Rebecca Givan, assistant professor at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. "They're in a position of strength. They're in that category of services that have to be delivered in person, so none of the usual outsourcing or globalization threats apply."
Paul and Darlene Clark, researchers at Penn State University, found that unions stand a better chance of organizing nurses if they appeal to a deteriorating climate of patient care rather than pocketbook issues. That appears to be the approach the Oregon Nurses Association is taking in Roseburg.
ONA organizer Jason Hatch said Mercy Medical's nurses mostly want a say in decisions regarding staffing, turnover and working conditions that affect patient care.
"Money is not a particular issue," Hatch said, though he went on to say that pay "does become an issue when you try to retain nurses."
Laura Garren, a 20-year-veteran of Mercy Medical's Family Birthplace maternity ward, said nurses think they lack a voice in helping administrators improve patient care and say they must work through breaks to cover staffing shortages.
She said she and colleagues became frustrated three years ago when her ward began to be used as an overflow for nonmaternity patients recovering from surgeries or illnesses.
"I'd been taking care of patients that I haven't taken care of since nursing school," Garren said. "That's not safe for our labor and delivery patients. It's not safe for our nursery patients."
More recently, nurses voiced dissatisfaction with hospital chief executive Victor Fresolone, who last month sent a letter to his nursing staff apologizing for an "inappropriate remark" he made to a physician in August. In the letter, he acknowledged referring to some nurses as " 'BMWs,' which, I regret, stands for 'bitchers, moaners and whiners.' "
Mercy Medical's communications director, Kathleen Nickel, said Tuesday that the comment was made privately to one physician and that Fresolone "owned up to it."
Nickel conceded that the hospital's pay for nurses is lower and its nursing staff turnover higher than average for hospitals in Oregon. She said consecutive years of losses between July 1, 2002 and June 30, 2004, prompted hospital administrators to freeze salaries and cut services.
"What we were hearing in the exit interviews was that people were leaving for compensation," Nickel said.
The hospital's nursing turnover rate is 17 percent a year, compared with a statewide average of 9 percent, according to a 2004 survey by the Oregon Center for Nursing.
Beginning in July, Nickel said, the hospital agreed to give nurses a series of four pay raises at six-month intervals in an effort to bring their average pay to scale with nurses statewide. Nurses at the hospital average between $26 and $27 an hour now, she said.
The hospital also addressed complaints in Garren's wing of the hospital in August by dedicating a smaller number of beds for maternity-only patients and separating the area from the rest of the hospital.
Mercy Medical Center, one of 69 hospitals nationwide owned by Minneapolis-based nonprofit Catholic Health Initiatives, employs nearly 1,400 and is in the midst of a $40 million expansion that will add 38 beds to its 153-bed inventory.
Nickel said the hospital has not taken an official position on the organizing campaign but said that administrators think nurses and administrators can work more effectively without a union.
"Right now people can speak up individually," she said. "With a collective body . . . there would be more steps involved."
Brent Hunsberger: 503-221-8359; brenthunsberger@news.oregonian.com, www.oregonlive.com/weblogs/atwork