Upset with the decision of the New York State Nurses Association's
board of directors to disaffiliate from its parent union, the United
American Nurses, three current or former members of the board have
sued the organization claiming their colleagues violated NYSNA's
bylaws and policies through the board's action.
In addition, the results of an election of NYSNA officers held last
year in which the current board was elected are being challenged by a
group of members who ran on a slate as pro-UAN candidates.
NYSNA is one of four state nurses associations that notified UAN
shortly before Christmas that they were disaffiliating immediately
(246 DLR A-16, 12/24/07). The other state associations that
disaffiliated were the Oregon Nurses Association, the Washington State
Nurses Association, and the Ohio Nurses Association. The four groups,
which together make up about 60 percent of the 100,000-member UAN,
cited continuing affiliation talks by the UAN leaders with the Service
Employees International Union as a major factor for the action, but
not the only one.
More recently, the New Jersey State Nurses Association Jan. 18
notified UAN that it also was disaffiliating. NJSNA Deputy Director
Sharon Rainer told BNA that the board had an emergency meeting based
on the disaffiliations of the other state associations and decided to
follow suit. “We didn't know what would happen with UAN in the
future” with so many members disaffiliating, she
said.
UAN Charges Board, Not Members, Voted.
UAN President Ann Converso acknowledged that the groups that have
disaffiliated constitute about 60 percent of UAN's membership. She
charged, however, that at least in New York, the votes to disaffiliate
were taken by the board of directors, which includes managers and
supervisors who cannot participate in bargaining, rather than by the
individual nurses and that staff nurses in New York are not happy with
the action.
Converso pointed out that UAN's National Labor Assembly, the
highest governing body of the union, is scheduled to meet March 9-10
in Denver. If the state associations “truly” had 60
percent of the membership behind them, they would have sent delegates
to the NLA, brought resolutions that “would have been
passed,” and elected new officers, she contended.
The five nurses groups are state affiliates of the American Nurses
Association. In 1999, delegates to ANA's House of Delegates voted to
form UAN as a separate labor entity within the association for those
nurses who engage in collective bargaining (119 DLR A-8, 6/22/99). In
2001, UAN became an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, but also remained part
of ANA. In January 2003, delegates to UAN's National Labor Assembly
approved a five-year affiliation agreement with ANA under which UAN
became an autonomous, self-governed national labor organization,
linked to ANA through affiliation and service agreements that cover
finances, support services, and relationships (17 DLR A-8,
1/27/03).
NYSNA is both a professional organization for all registered nurses
including supervisors and managers in New York and a union that
represents nurses in collective bargaining. In response to a 1983
decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that
found NYSNA was dominated by supervisors and thus not a bona fide
labor organization, NYSNA enacted bylaws to insulate its collective
bargaining functions from its functions as an association. In 1988,
the same court found that NYSNA had insulated its collective
bargaining program sufficiently to avoid a “clear and present
danger of a conflict of
interest.”
Supervisory Domination Alleged.
Whether the association's collective bargaining program continues
to be insulated from supervisory domination is at the heart of a
lawsuit filed Jan. 10 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern
District of New York by three NYSNA members who are current or former
members of the board of directors (Holloman v. New York State
Nurses Assn.,
S.D.N.Y.,
No. 08-CV-00211,
filed 1/10/08).
Whether the association's collective
bargaining program continues to be insulated from supervisory
domination is at the heart of a lawsuit filed by three current or
former board members.
The three nurses charged that the NYSNA board of directors violated
the bylaws of the organization by acting unlawfully to disaffiliate
from UAN. In addition, they charged that NYSNA violated the
Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act by disciplining them for
exercising their right to speak out and oppose NYSNA's efforts to
disaffiliate from UAN.
According to the lawsuit, NYSNA's bylaws prohibit the board of
directors, which includes nonunion members and supervisors, from
participating in or influencing the conduct of the collective
bargaining program.
In mid-2007, some members of the NYSNA leadership became unhappy
with NYSNA's relationship with UAN. At an Aug. 8, 2007, executive
session of a board meeting, six of the 10 board members present, out
of 13 members, voted to poll the NYSNA membership on whether to stay
in the UAN or disaffiliate. The other four members of the board
present at the meeting, including plaintiffs Patricia Leo Holloman and
Judy Sheridan-Gonzales, opposed the decision to take the poll and
voted “no.” Lorna Samuels, the third plaintiff, was not at
the meeting but indicated that she would have voted
“no.”
Later Holloman, Sheridan-Gonzales, Samuels, and another dissenting
board member presented a written minority report to the board
explaining that they opposed the poll because they believed it
violated the “insulation” policies of the organization
since the disaffiliation involved a matter directly impacting the
collective bargaining program. The board majority, however, ruled that
the minority report was an amendment to the minutes of the executive
session and therefore could not be made public.
The disaffiliation poll was held between Aug. 28 and Sept. 11. The
plaintiffs and about 20 other nurses formed a group called NYSNA
Nurses for Unity and campaigned vigorously against the disaffiliation.
At the same time several board members and staff including the chief
executive officer campaigned in favor of the disaffiliation.
The poll votes were counted Sept. 18 and the results were 2,312 to
1,533 against disaffiliation. In September and October, various
internal charges were filed against the 23 nurses who participated in
NYSNA Nurses for Unity alleging that the nurses engaged in conduct
detrimental to NYSNA. In November, the board dismissed the complaints,
stating that the alleged wrongful actions were “protected under
the freedom of speech provision of applicable federal
law.”
Even though a majority of those polled voted
not to disaffiliate, the board voted Dec. 17 to disaffiliate from UAN
and notified UAN of its decision Dec. 21.
The board, however, on Nov. 30 notified Holloman and
Sheridan-Gonzalez, both of whom had been members of the board up until
their defeat in October, and Samuels, who is currently the secretary
of the board of directors, that action was being taken against them
because as board members they engaged in public dissension by publicly
opposing the board. Each was told she would not be considered for
appointment to any NYSNA board or nominated for any ANA related
position. In addition, Samuels was prohibited from attending all
executive session meetings and denied from being appointed to any
executive committee or council.
Even though a majority of those polled voted not to disaffiliate,
the board voted Dec. 17 to disaffiliate from UAN and notified UAN of
its decision Dec. 21. Samuels was excluded from the Dec. 17 meeting
and not permitted to vote.
According to the complaint, the board violated its own bylaws,
which bar it from participating in actions affecting collective
bargaining. The disaffiliation affected the collective bargaining
program because UAN provided national financial and educational
support for NYSNA's bargaining activities, and it offered its members
the benefits of affiliation with the AFL-CIO.
The complaint also charged that the board violated its own past
practice. According to the plaintiffs, in 1999 the board voted to
affiliate with UAN only after NYSNA's delegate assembly voted to
recommend affiliation. In making its decision to disaffiliate,
however, the board did not convene the delegate assembly nor allow it
to vote, the complaint said.
Nancy Webber, an NYSNA spokeswoman, confirmed that three members
have filed a lawsuit, but told BNA that the suit involves
“internal operations.” She added that none of the nurses
had received any “official
discipline.”
Election Complaint Filed With DOL.
Meanwhile, a complaint was re-filed Feb. 1 with the Labor
Department seeking to overturn the results of the election of NYSNA
officers last summer that included contests for the president-elect,
treasurer, four board of director members, and delegates to the
association's house of delegates.
The complaint, which was filed on behalf of 13 members who ran
together on a slate called Nurses for Unity, alleges that NYSNA
resources were used to aid the other slate of candidates and to
address an issue in play, that of the disaffiliation, during the
election campaign. In addition, the complaint alleges that NYSNA
resources were used to attack members who were identified with the
NYSNA Nurses for Unity slate, NYSNA discriminatorily applied the
election rules to benefit the other slate, and NYSNA did not put into
place any verifiable safeguards to insure that votes received by
e-mail were actually cast by the members in whose names they were
cast.
The original complaint was filed with DOL Dec. 21, but the
department said the nurses had to exhaust their appeal to the UAN
first, according to Arthur Schwartz of Schwartz, Lichten & Bright
in New York City, who filed the DOL complaint on behalf of the nurses.
In response, Schwartz said, UAN has notified DOL that it does not have
an appeal process for elections and he re-filed the complaint.
Anne Bove, who ran unsuccessfully for the president-elect position,
told BNA that she and the other unsuccessful candidates are
challenging the election because the officers who were elected, many
of whom have never participated in collective bargaining, are the ones
who made the decision to withdraw from UAN.
Bove said the biggest question now is what happens next since NYSNA
is no longer affiliated with UAN. She said NYSNA-represented nurses no
longer have the protection of the AFL-CIO so its units could be raided
by other unions.
Webber said the protection from raiding was one of the reasons
NYSNA wanted to belong to the AFL-CIO, but “a lot has
changed” since then including the disaffiliation of SEIU from
the federation. NYSNA has always maintained that “we don't have
to worry about raids if we do a good job for our members,” she
added.
Relationship Between UAN, ANA in Question.
All of this is occurring at a time when the relationship between
UAN and the ANA is in question. Prior to the announcement of the
disaffiliations, the ANA board of directors notified both UAN and the
Center for American Nurses, which represents the workplace interests
of individual nurses who do not participate in collective bargaining,
that it is terminating their affiliation agreements when they expire
June 30. The board, however, said it was willing to have discussions
about pursuing “different types of business relationships”
with the two organizations.
Converso said UAN intends is to talk with ANA about another type of
relationship but at this point does not know what that relationship
might be. She said UAN currently is paying ANA more than $1 million
for space and services and UAN does not want to continue to do
that.
In a Jan. 7 statement announcing the termination of the
affiliation, ANA said the board of directors reaffirmed its support
for its diverse membership having the freedom to choose collective
bargaining or other approaches to workforce advocacy. “ANA is
fully committed to offering its members participation in both labor
and workforce advocacy programs. To that end, absent the affiliation
agreements between ANA and the AOMs [Associate Organizational
Members], the [state nurses associations] may receive a grant from ANA
for their own labor or workforce advocacy programs. This money could
be put toward the payment of dues to UAN or the Center, as the state
association deems appropriate.”
Relationship With AFL-CIO Unclear.
Meanwhile, AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney Jan. 8 notified the
state labor federations in New York, Ohio, Oregon, and Washington that
the four state nurses association are “no longer eligible to
participate in the federation at the state or local level” due
to the disaffiliation from UAN.
In a letter to the presidents of the four state federations,
Sweeney wrote that the AFL-CIO has been meeting with the leadership of
the UAN about this matter and continues to urge that “the issues
which have caused this decision [to disaffiliate] be addressed through
direct negotiations among the parties and I have offered the
assistance of the national AFL-CIO in seeking such a
resolution.”
In a separate letter to the presidents and collective bargaining
directors of the four nurses associations, Sweeney wrote that he
understood that “there is a sincere desire” by the
organizations to remain part of the AFL-CIO. “I appreciate your
position on this matter and certainly want to do everything I can to
maintain your participation in the greater labor movement. Any
continued participation in the AFL-CIO would have to be approved by
the Executive Council, and that approval, no doubt, would only be
given with the consent of the UAN's national leadership.”
Sweeney then urged the principles to seek to address “all of
these issues through direct, good faith, negotiations with the
UAN.”
Pointing to Sweeney's letter, Converso told BNA that “despite
what they have been saying” the state affiliates that left UAN
are “out of the AFL-CIO.” She said UAN is the AFL-CIO
affiliate, and the state affiliates' relationship with the AFL-CIO was
derived from the UAN relationship. “They will not get a direct
relationship” because UAN will oppose any such effort, she
said.
But, Paul Goldberg, the assistant executive director for labor
relations at the Oregon Nurses Association, told BNA that it is the
intention of the nurses to remain active in the labor movement, adding
he was not ruling out the possibility of remaining in the
AFL-CIO.
The disaffiliated state associations
“will not get a direct relationship” with the AFL-CIO,
because UAN will oppose any such effort, UAN President Ann Converso
says.
Goldberg pointed to the fact that the California Nurses Association
last year became an affiliate of the AFL-CIO over the objections of
UAN. “Simply because one affiliate says another group should not
be allowed to be a member, that is not necessarily the outcome,”
he said, adding each case is considered separately.
Goldberg added that the original four groups and the New Jersey
group made up more than 60 percent of the UAN membership, and they are
beginning to have discussions about creating a “formal
entity” that could seek a charter from the AFL-CIO. He said the
groups are optimistic that they could receive a charter, adding that
there seems to be support among the other unions in the AFL-CIO that
represent nurses as well as within the state labor federations.
Goldberg said he anticipates that another two or three state nurses
associations also will pull out of the UAN shortly. While he declined
to name the states, he said a couple currently are going through an
internal review process to decide whether or not to disaffiliate.
An AFL-CIO spokeswoman acknowledged that the federation is
continuing to be involved to see if the dispute can be resolved, but
declined any further comment.
By Michelle Amber
Copyright 2008, The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.