The Nurses United for Improved Patient Care continued their efforts to keep the community aware and involved with its campaign for hospital accountability when some 50 members and their supporters picketed a Health Midwest anti-union seminar in October. Health Midwest (HMW) is the largest health provider in the Kansas City, Mo., area, and Nurses United members are primarily from its employ.

The nurses, who are attempting to improve patient care and working conditions through unionization at HMW facilities, picketed at the Kansas City Marriott Downtown, where Management Science Associates Inc., a consulting firm being retained by HMW to thwart unionization efforts, was conducting a seminar. The picketers were protesting the exorbitant amount of money being spent on anti-union activities that could be spent on patient care. The group has estimated that HMW has spent from $672,000 to more than $2 million in consulting fees. Nurses United is calling upon the health care giant to make a full disclosure to the community, to the state and federal government and the IRS of the amount of money it's spending to oppose nurses' legal efforts to form a union.

The National Labor Relations Board has already cited HMW for some 150 violations of employee rights, and Nurses United is still awaiting a decision on those charges.

In addition to Nurses United members, speakers at the Oct. 3 rally included Missouri senator Mary Groves Bland; Greater Kansas City AFL-CIO president Bridgette Williams; and Garry Kemp, executive secretary-manager of the Greater Kansas City Building and Construction Trades Council.