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10.03.2006
Politically Driven NLRB Ruling
on Supervisory Status of Nurses Fails to Provide Promised Clarity
on Union Eligibility
NLRB Chair Robert Battista to Appear
at MNA Convention
To Discuss Decision on a Panel with Local Union Leaders and Labor
Experts
Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2006, Beginning at 9:30 a.m.
Sturbridge Host Hotel and Conference Center
In a long-awaited decision by the National Labor
Relations Board (NLRB) to clarify if and when registered nurses
can be classified as supervisors under the National Labor Relations
Act, the Republican dominated Board issued a convoluted ruling today
that targeted certain nurses working in the role as a permanent
charge nurse as potentially ineligible for union representation.
On a practical level, the NLRB ruling specifically states that the
ultimate decisions on union eligibility for these employees will
continue to be decided on a case-by-case basis, leaving the door
open for further extensive litigation of these matters and removing
its stated goal of intended “clarification” of this
issue.
It is clear, with the three released decisions today
as the latest examples, that the NLRB, whose directors are political
appointees, have taken a turn to the far right and have been construing
labor law in favor of the employer. This decision will prove a boom
to management attorneys who will continue to do what they have been
doing for years, which is to use every opportunity to delay union
elections and to deprive workers, including nurses, of their union
rights. In the context of workers’ rights, justice delayed
is justice denied.
There is nothing really new in this decision. It
is yet another example of the continued erosion of rights of workers
by the Republican right.
In the end it is the public who has the most to
lose if registered nurses are deprived of their right to organize
in unions as it is only under the protection of a union that nurses
can fulfill their role as advocates for patients.
NLRB Decisions Regard Supervisory
Issues for Nurses
348-37.pdf
348-38.pdf
348-39.pdf
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