Mass. Nurses may join big union: State’s locals seek lobbying power

The Boston Globe reports:

Unionized nurses in Massachusetts are moving toward affiliating with their counterparts in California and more than 20 other states to create the largest nurses union in US history, a 150,000-member powerhouse that would lobby lawmakers for higher staffing levels and an overhaul of the nation’s health care system.

The move could give the state’s nurses more bargaining power with hospitals and aid organizing efforts at nonunion health care providers such as Massachusetts General Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. But it is being opposed by some nurses at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and elsewhere who do not want to pay the added dues needed to finance the organization.

Local backers of the new alliance, National Nurses United, contend it would help patients by pushing for state laws mandating more nurses on duty. “This is an opportunity for nurses to work together to be more effective in safeguarding patients,’’ said Donna Kelly-Williams, a Cambridge Hospital nurse who took over this month as president of the 23,000-member Massachusetts Nurses Association, which represents the vast majority of nurses at Massachusetts hospitals.

Hospital managers fear that dealing with a new national union would slow their efforts to boost efficiency and cut costs by introducing technology and reducing staff. “Hospitals are responsible for patient safety, so they’re not going to do something terrible’’ to affect the quality of care, said Jeff Toner, a labor consultant for Dietz Associates in Kennebunk, Maine, who works with health care providers in the region. “But there’s also the issue of productivity, and hospitals want to be able to transfer nurses between departments.’’

Yet the advocates of more government in health care promise us lower costs. Imagine that.