Ruling sickens nurses PDF Print E-mail
Chicago Sun-Times: Ruling sickens nurses BY FRANCINE KNOWLES Business Reporter
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Labor leaders are blasting a federal labor board ruling handed down Tuesday affecting nurses that they say paves the way for employers to strip millions of workers of the right to organize in a wide range of occupations. The National Labor Relations Board broadened the definition of "supervisor." In a 3-2 ruling, it said that nurses who assign duties to other nurses and are permanently assigned to run work shifts are considered supervisors, and that makes them exempt from union protections and barred from joining unions.
The ruling "welcomes employers to strip millions of workers of their right to have a union by reclassifying them as 'supervisors in name only,' " AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said in a statement.

The ruling means that if an employee spends as little as 10 percent to 15 percent of his or her time performing supervisory functions, he or she will be considered a supervisor, the labor federation said.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce attorney Stephen Bokat said the ruling provides employers "a good, clear standard" on which workers are supervisors.

''When undergoing any organizing efforts by unions, you have to know who in the work force belongs to you and who belongs to the union," he said.

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing committee, which represents nurses at Cook County health care facilities, greeted the news by saying it's putting employers on notice that its members will strike if they perceive employers are exploiting the ruling.

"It's going to hurt the working men and women in the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois," Chicago Federation of Labor President Dennis Gannon said of the ruling.

Nationally, 23 percent of the work force could be classified as supervisors under the new definition, he said.

The Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, has said workers in 35 occupations ranging from computer systems analysts to police officers, social workers and construction trades could be affected.

Margaret Nielsen, an emergency room nurse at Our Lady of Resurrection in Chicago, is concerned the ruling could exempt her from joining a union. She has been working with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31 in Chicago to organize workers at the hospital. She's a staff nurse, but at times has been called upon to perform the duties of a charge nurse, she said. Those duties include being responsible for scheduling and dividing duties of other nurses. Nielsen doesn't consider herself a supervisor.

"I don't make decisions to hire or fire," she said. "I don't make decisions on salaries. . . . As a nurse, I really want to be in the union to help my patients, to be a patient advocate."

Illinois Hospital Association spokesman Danny Chun said the ruling will not have any impact on the quality of patient care. He said he doesn't know how hospitals will react to the decision or how many nurses in Illinois might be affected by it.

The ruling is expected to be challenged all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Dissenters on the NLRB board wrote that the decision ''threatens to create a new class of workers under federal labor law: workers who have neither the genuine prerogatives of management, nor the statutory rights of ordinary employees.''

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