MASSACHUSETTS NURSE NEWSLETTER :: November/December 2007

President's Column

Beth Piknick

By Beth Piknick
MNA President

The following remarks were taken from the opening address that MNA President Beth Piknick provided at the organization’s annual convention in Springfield this past October.

Good afternoon. Abraham Lincoln once said, “To stand in silence when they should be protesting makes cowards out of men.” As I stand before you today, at this, the 100th anniversary of this annual gathering of the membership of the MNA, I can proudly say that I see only brave women and men in this room. As we celebrate 100 years of activism at this convention, I stand before you proud to be among the bravest, strongest, most powerful and most progressive nurses in the United States of America.

I look out and see the brave nurses of UMass Medical Center, who just after last year’s convention, waged the shortest strike in nursing history—five hours that rocked the nursing world in Massachusetts, and put the MNA on the map once again for being one of the few unions to make a stand and win a fight to protect nurses’ rights to a defined benefit pension plan.

I see the nurses of Brigham & Women’s Hospital and St. Vincent Hospital, who took their own historic votes to authorize a strike, and out of that process and as a result of their resolve, negotiated groundbreaking agreements.

I see representatives from Lawrence General Hospital, Salem Hospital, Northeast Health Systems, the nurses of the American Red Cross, the West Springfield School nurses and other bargaining units who have also stayed strong and won important agreements by not being silent.

I see Kathy Metzger from Brockton Hospital, who has shown the ultimate bravery by taking on the most oppressive management team and CEO in the state, leading to the negotiation of a good contract, but more importantly, she took her administration to the woodshed with OSHA, securing important oversight and protection for her members from an epidemic of workplace violence.

I see the nurses of North Adams Regional Hospital, Berkshire Medical Center and the Baystate VNA who are, as we speak, engaged in pitched battles for new contracts. The nurses of North Adams are taking their own strike vote on Oct. 11. Yesterday, many of you here joined the nurses of the Baystate VNA in a protest here in Springfield in their struggle for a first contract.

When I look at this gathering and I consider the work that we do I see an organization that has achieved its successes because of its ability to bring nurses together to speak with one powerful voice.

I see an organization that embraces the concept that one nurse working alone can become a victim, but many nurses working together can change the world. I see a brave organization that is never silent and always ready, willing and able to raise its unified voice to protest any wrong at any a time.

On the legislative front, we continue to protest the fact that patients in our hospitals are suffering and dying needlessly from lack of access to the nursing care they deserve. Over the last several weeks, a number of brave nurses, from all regions of the state, along with citizen supporters from the Coalition to Protect Massachusetts Patients, have been engaged in meetings with legislators in their districts to tell their stories and to finish the job of making the passage of H. 2059, the Patient Safety Act, a reality. Later this month, on Oct. 24, brave nurses from throughout the commonwealth will be at the State House for the critical hearing for this bill. And believe me, we will make safe staffing a reality this legislative session.

During the summer, I watched a number of courageous nurses, each victims of workplace violence, tell their stories and make our case for passage of the workplace violence protection bill. This included an appearance in a nationally televised news story on CNN.

As I complete my first term and begin my second as President, I look back on two years of continued growth and development of our organization driven by our five-year plan, now in its third year, and the dues increase that made it possible.

Ask any of the nurses in the bargaining units I have just cited if their dues money has been well spent and I am confident you will receive a resounding endorsement for the work we have been able to do.

The MNA’s ability to expand its power and effectiveness took a quantum leap in the past year with the addition of grassroots community organizers from the division of legislation in each MNA region. These organizers have helped our members build broader and deeper bonds with their communities, not only bringing greater community support to our bargaining units, but also having our bargaining units become more deeply imbedded into their own communities and the struggles of those communities.

A perfect example is Region 2, where that Region was just recognized by the AFL-CIO Central Labor Council with an award for the community services members of the bargaining units have performed. For example, when the St. Vincent nurses held a picket for their contract, they combined it with a Christmas toy drive, generating more donations of toys and goods than any group in the city.

And this brings me to the one important point I wanted to raise today as we move into the next two years of MNA activism. It is my hope and my goal as your president to foster the expansion of MNA activity and MNA consciousness to assist all members to see the value of not only belonging to and becoming active in their local bargaining unit—which is central to all that we do—but also to become active and involved in broader issues and initiatives that in the end, enhance their bargaining unit work, while improving our entire society.

We all need to know and understand that while it is great to work on contract language to address an issue in the workplace, there is also benefit in working on a legislative solution to the same problem for all nurses. This is especially true given that the NLRB, the enforcement arm of the collective bargaining process has become so weak and unfriendly to workers after so many years of Republican rule.

For example, we can work hard to negotiate great language on staffing or safe patient handling or workplace violence, but if management violates that contract language, it can take years to address the problem, and with the current state of the NLRB, there is no guarantee that we will win in the end. We must work on both fronts—the local bargaining unit level and the legislative level.

As we confront the challenges of the growing health reform movement in our state, the MNA and our members must be actively involved in this process on a number of levels, both in their bargaining unit and in their communities.

So I stand before you today proud and humbled to have been given the honor of serving as president these last two years for such brave and honorable members of my profession. I stand before you today grateful for having had the privilege and good fortune to work with the most talented staff of any union in America. I also stand here energized and excited to work with you over the next two years as we continue to nourish the continued growth of the MNA into the next century of MNA activism.

I thank you.