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Nurses answer call to political
action Union nurses gather at NYC conference December 3, 2003 Many nurses are in the profession because they heeded a call to help people. Now in the profession, many are hearing another loud call - to political action. "Politics affect your life; they affect everything," said Mary MacDonald, director of health care for the American Federation of Teachers. "You need to get involved because it has never, ever been like this in Washington, D.C." MacDonald joined a panel of health care experts who told about 250 nurses at a conference of the Federation of Nurses/United Federation of Teachers about the importance of responding to recent political setbacks. Some nurses and other health-care professionals are being forced to say good-bye to overtime pay, have lost ergonomic standards and will lose vast chunks of Medicare benefits. The UFT is an affiliate of New York State United Teachers in New York City. Any professional not protected by collective bargaining and making more than $65,000 a year will no longer be entitled to overtime pay, according to a proposed regulation from the Department of Labor scheduled to be enacted Jan. 1. While Congress temporarily blocked the regulation, President Bush tied it to an appropriations bill which he threatened to veto if Congress did not reconsider its block. Congress did back off in the face of pressure from the White House. "This threatens future negotiations," said Floyd Cameron, NYSUT legislative representative who spoke on the panel. "The most impacted NYSUT members are health care workers who depend on voluntary overtime to make ends meet." The ergonomics regulations, issued by former President Clinton, ensured workplace safety, guarded against repetitive stress injuries and offered nurses protections from heavy lifting. They were repealed by President Bush immediately upon taking office. "So many of you are at risk of injury as you lift patients from wheelchair to commode to bed," said Anne Goldman, nurse representative to the UFT and chairwoman of NYSUT's Health Care Professionals Council. California's new governor also took immediate action to remove a protection for nurses - Arnold Schwarzenegger is working on a rule to stop implementation of the state's mandated nurse-patient ratios. MacDonald also told the nurses that "Bush-onomics" will create changes - particularly with Medicare - affecting "the poorest of the poor." Cameron said 85 percent of all health-care workers are females, some of whom have poor pensions. "Stay focused, stay involved, go to your union meetings," Cora Shillingford, new local leader for the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, told her colleagues. She urged members to contribute by payroll deduction to VOTE-COPE, NYSUT's political action fund supported by voluntary contributions for grass-roots lobbying and political action on behalf of education, health care and labor issues. VOTE-COPE is the fund "that sends us to Albany," Shillingford said. "The work we do for nurses today will affect the kind of care we get when we're older," said Renee Gestone-Setteducato, union leader for the UFT chapter at Lutheran Medical Center. - Liza Frenette |
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