Thrilled with the FNHP election victory at their hospital are Menorah RNs Barb Chamblin, Lesley Daniels and Teresa Barnett who all played key roles in the union's organizing drive. "Part of our professional mandate is to become advocates [for patients], and what better way to do that than through a unionized workforce," says Barnett, in whose living room the whole movement began two years ago.Barnett is relatively new to the nursing profession; compared to many of the RNs who've been in nursing for 20 years or more. Barnett graduated from nursing school in 1993. So, she says, she "knew what the frustrations and problems of nursing were when I went in."

Barnett explains: "I had a feeling that I was going to start a union. I loved nursing and caring for patients, but I saw a whole sector that wasn't being cared for." So, Barnett called together nurses from throughout the Kansas City area and held meetings in her living room to talk about organizing around concerns for patient care. "I was mainly concerned about the disintegration of our profession and also about the problems with the quality of patient care provided," said Burnett. "I was concerned that if nurses didn't stand up and hold the health care industry accountable, then really there wouldn't be any such thing as quality patient care in the community or around the country."

The Kansas City nurses interviewed unions and found that the majority wanted the FNHP, says Lesley Daniels. The reasons, she said, were "mainly because it was a national union run by nurses and they totally understood what our needs and frustrations and goals were. We knew we could relate to them and they could relate to us. And we knew our local would be autonomous and would be able to meet the needs that are specific to us."Barnett's living room was also the birthplace of Nurses United for Improved Patient Care--a grassroots movement made up of nurses from Health Midwest and other area facilities who want to do something about the decline in the quality of patient care. The group called on FNHP/AFT on Labor Day 1999 to help with organizing and since then has held three elections--the first a loss that may be overturned due to more than 100 NLRB-filed unfair labor practice charges--and two victories, the most recent of which was at Menorah, which is one of the 15 facilities owned by HMW.

"Our goal is to have the highest-quality patient care that is possible," says RN Lesley Daniels, who has been a nurse for 26 years and at Menorah for three. "We want to have a meaningful recruitment and retention program that will provide continuity of care and a PRN pool that is loyal to our facility...and to get equipment to take care of our patients." Daniels says it's outrageous that patient care staff have to scrounge for equipment or delay procedures while functioning equipment is found.

Barb Chamblin, who works in Menorah's family birthing center, said that nurses regularly expressed concern to management about problem areas, but no solutions were ever provided. In addition to understaffing and lack of supplies, says Chamblin, the hospital had begun to take benefits away, to minimize pay increases, and to belittle nurses' concerns about recruitment and retention issues. "It was frustrating," she says. "So we got together and said, 'If no one is listening to us, maybe we'd better get together outside the hospital [and organize] so we'd have representation.' "

Not addressing these concerns was hurting "how we performed our jobs as RNs," says Chamblin, who said she decided that if she were to stay in the hospital setting, she had to be part of a solution and part of a change. "I always thought nurses needed to get more organized." Once she started going to meetings at which her colleagues from throughout the system were talking about unionization, Chamblin said that it all "just made sense."

Chamblin and Daniels and Barnett were just three of the many who made the effort to organize for greater strength and better care a reality. While the election was in November, said Chamblin, the HMW corporation delayed the count by appealing to the National Labor Relations Board, insisting that Menorah had to be paired with another HMW hospital for the election. The appeal was denied and the ballots finally released and counted in December, declaring the nurses' organizing effort victorious by a vote of 145 to 111 out of 270 cast.

"They spent a lot of money to stop a movement," says Daniels. "Finally, their workforce was going to be empowered." And the corporation was against that, she notes, "even though we were striving to do what they wanted ultimately: to provide quality nursing care."

"I believe that this victory at Menorah sends a powerful message to the community that nurses are working toward improving the quality of care provided in Kansas City," says Barnett. "In 10 years I hope to see a significant improvement in the overall delivery of health care here. We'll have a unionized workforce with the message of improving care on a continuing basis."