Silence Costs Lives: PASNAP speaks up for patients and health providers
This afternoon, nurses, doctors, students, and concerned community members picketed outside the ribbon cutting ceremony for the opening of Temple’s new Medical Education and Research Building at 3500 N. Broad St. Temple VIPs who attended the ceremony had a clear view of the spirited rally from inside the shiny new building.
PA Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP) organized this rally to show their disapproval of Temple’s unjust treatment of PASNAP's 1500 members. In addition to today’s protest, the Union filed several charges with the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board, denouncing Temple’s illegal surveillance of individual union members, attempts at intimidation and illegal, bad faith bargaining.
Temple has proposed a 'gag clause' for its employees, which states, "The Association, its officers,... representatives or members shall not publicly criticize,... or make any statement which disparages... Temple or any of its management officers or medical staff members." The sad irony in Temple’s ‘gag clause’ proposal is that studies have shown that hospitals where nurses belong to a union provide superior patient care. One recent study shows that hospitals with union nurses have 5.5 percent fewer deaths from heart attacks than hospitals without unions. The security of union membership means that nurses have the confidence to speak out on behalf of their patients, and are therefore able to provide better care.
Temple is trying to enforce a clause that will limit nurses' ability to provide quality care, but as today's crowd chanted, "Our Union, together, will never be defeated."
PASNAP's rally was one of three pro-health care demonstrations happening today. Student Healthcare Action Network, Helathcare NOW!, and Healthcare for All Philadelphia held a sit-in and rally at the Independence Blue Cross offices. UFCW 1776, Change to Win and other groups organized a protest outside a Chamber of Commerce conference, which highlighted the Chamber's fight against health care reform, cap and trade, net neutrality, EFCA, and other progressive public policies.
Text and photos by Miguel Andrade, Tim Moyer and Mica Root.
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the strength of a hospital is its nursing staff
As this great post points out, working conditions for nurses isn't just a labor issue, it's a safety issue and a health issue. How can patients get excellent care if their nurses are overworked and mistreated by management?
"The security of union membership means that nurses have the confidence
to speak out on behalf of their patients, and are therefore able to
provide better care."
The rights of nurses and other healthcare professionals should be important to everyone!
Solidarity is the Best Medicine
The forces that promote profit-at-any-price operate internationally. As medical industry giants expand across the globe, health workers in different nations find themselves facing similar conditions, sometimes even the same employer. To counter their divide-and-rule strategies, we must also organize globally.
International Health Workers for People Over Profit believes that health workers must have a central role in the planning and delivery of health and medical services.
We support each others’ efforts to achieve better working conditions for ourselves and better services for our patients. And we defend health workers who are targeted by management for their activism.
We welcome all who work in the mental and physical health industry, regardless of type or location of work, job description, employed and unemployed, students and retired, disabled, union and non-union.
We include ALL health workers so that we can learn to overcome the social, workplace and geographic divisions that make it harder to unite around common concerns.
JOIN US!
http://www.healthworkersinternational.org/