As a registered nurse employed at Middlesboro ARH and currently walking the picket line with my fellow KNA members in our continuing strike efforts, I would like to give the community a different viewpoint to consider.
As a hospital built with a strong union background, I now wonder how it has fallen so far from its beginnings. The current management team headed by CEO Jerry Haynes seems determined in its efforts to break our union. They have gone so far to hire a "unionbusting"group, Yessin & Associates to advise them on the best strategies to accomplish this goal. I'm proud to say their efforts continue to fail. If anything, the tactics used to break our union, the Kentucky Nurses Association, has only served to make it grow stronger and our allegiance as well. On Yessin' s website the company advertises itself as successful in "helping companies to create effective strike plans" that in most cases avoid the strike altogether because "preparing it usually means you don't have to implement it." Guess they were wrong about that. No one, not even ARH management, can truthfully deny that a pre strike plan was not implemented months before we walked out on October 1. I will go out on a strong limb to say that these plans were in the works even while the steelworkers were out on the front lawn in their tents last May. All of us witnessed various preparations on management's part from dusting off their rusty nursing skills to boning up on day to day routines on the floor to hiring new "clinical nurse managers" to assist in the process of dealing with a strike. Everyone knew that our RN strike was inevitable and ARH made sure that we were given no choice. Yessin's website goes on to say that in the event of a strike they have proven methods to sway both employee and public opinion in the employers favor. We've all seen and heard and read those methods over the past six weeks, haven't we? Yessin also offers to "help facilitate the effective restoration of a union-free employment environment."
If ARH officials were being totally up front and honest with the people in the communities they serve and profess to care about, they would admit that eradicating both the KNA and the USW from its nine facilities was and is their only goal in this matter. There has been wide spread speculation for months that ARH is seeking to sell its hospitals to a larger corporation who apparently doesn't want the unions to go along with the sale. It's beginning to make more sense now, doesn't it?
ARH covered most all its bases except one: it has grossly underestimated the strength of its nurses. I guess Yessin left that denominator out of its pie chart. We are much tougher than first thought. I suspect we were all expected to tuck under our tails and take down our tents weeks ago. But here we stand today stronger than ever walking the picket line with several other bigger, more prominent unions by our side such as the UMWA, AFL/CIO, UAN, SEIU, and others cheering us on and giving us more strength. Who can be against us if so many are for us??? While it true that a small percentage of our nurses have taken the easy "scab" road instead of standing with us to fight, the rest of us remain strong in our resolve to see this through to the end. I use the term "fight" because our company has made it one. As hospitals all located in current or former mining towns where families of miners and union members reside, these same facilities are now seeking to rid themselves of the very foundations on which they were built. John L. Lewis must be rolling over in his grave!
I fear that as this strike continues, ARH will lose more excellent, dedicated nurses to other facilities than they can ever replace. Quantity cannot replace quality. Money cannot buy experience, caring and dedication. No one who works in healthcare can dispute the fact that we do have a serious nursing shortage. While most of us would rather work close to our homes and communities where we live, we are also willing to drive our skills and experience to other hospitals and situations where we feel more valued and respected despite the pay. Do not be misled by ARH's numerous propaganda ads carefully worded with deceiving statements and half truths. Yes, ARH is still open for business daily but now staffed with so-called replacement workers that old time union members refer to as "scabs." ARH's ads assure the community that they are being taken care of by "skilled nursing teams" with "experienced agency RN's" while their press releases portray us, registered nurses some of whom have worked for ARH many years, as greedy and unwilling to negotiate. Negotiations should be done at the bargaining table with two sets of open minded negotiating teams and not in public forums such as this newspaper. Tossing a bundle of papers onto the negotiating table and stating "this is your last, best and final offer" without following any real negotiation process is not good faith bargaining. ARH officials know our issues and concerns-they just are choosing to ignore them.
When ARH decides to listen to its nurses for the first time and comes back to table ready to admit that maybe we have some valid concerns and are willing to negotiate a mutually beneficial contract we all can live with, then and only then will this strike end. None of us on that picket line want to be there-we want to be back inside doing what we were trained to do and taking care of you, our patients. Yes, our union does want to change nursing healthcare standards not only for our small hospital, not just in Kentucky but all across the country. We want those standards raised to a higher level providing lower staffing ratios and ending mandatory overtime that result in overly tired, burned out nurses. While those higher standards can be permanently changed using legislation, those same changes can start here in our hometowns now and when proven successful, legislators will be more likely to push through future bills making your healthcare a priority.
You may wonder, as many of us do, why not one, but two, strikes have occurred with ARH in the same year when no strike had happened since the mid eighties?? Our two unions, the United Steelworkers and Kentucky Nurses Association, had minimal problems in the past successfully negotiating acceptable contracts with ARH. Yet 2007 has yielded two strikes resulting in unnecessary setbacks for both employees and the hospitals involved. Should ARH's Board of Directors, Board of Trustees, and our local advisory council look with closer scrutiny at the current management's actions and tactics and perhaps hold them to a higher standard when dealing with valuable and dedicated employees?
Please continue to support us because we are fighting for you as well as ourselves. The changes we are trying to make in the delivery of the healthcare you deserve will affect everyone reading this statement now and for years to come. So give us a loud honk as you drive by to show us your continued support for our efforts.
Thank you,
Claudette Fultz, RN, KNA Local 106 Secretary
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