The common ground that teachers and nurses have is that "the quality of services matters to us," said United Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten addressing the Federation of Nurses/UFT's annual professional issues conference this fall. Weingarten said she has learned about the strength and savvy of nurses not only through serving as president of the New York City local, which represents nurses as well as teachers, but through helping her mother through a recent bout with cancer. "The care my mother got from nurses is something I will never in my life forget," she said.

The FN/UFT conference, titled "Health Care Challenges in the Millennium," was held Nov. 3-4, 2000, in New York City. Weingarten noted that the weekend marked the UFT's 40th anniversary. In looking back, said the union president, "we've gotten bigger and stronger, more sophisticated and savvy" in large part because of the lessons the nurses have taught the union on how to deal with employer attacks and employer minimization of the important work they do.

The FN/UFT, which represents health professionals throughout New York City, offered conference workshops on home health care, occupational risks, women's health, liability and risk management, as well as sessions on the politics of health care issues and quality health care in the millennium.

The strength and power that the UFT represents, not to mention that of the 1-million-member AFT, has made a difference on issues that affect nurses' employers, said Weingarten. When a city visiting nurse service, where nurses are FN/UFT members, tried to exclude 75 new nurses coming in during the purchase of another home care agency, the union bargained with the employer, using the argument that they would join forces "to lobby for legislation to benefit the home care organization and the nurses," said Weingarten. It worked.

Said the FN/UFT chapter leader from VNS, Joanne Adams. "They [the employers] really do listen to us."