Whittier Hospital RNs Choose CNA/NNOC In Landslide 87% Election Victory, California

Main Category: Nursing / Midwifery
Article Date: 21 Dec 2007 - 12:00 PDT

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By a landslide 87 percent vote, registered nurses at Whittier Hospital Medical Center in the Los Angeles area Wednesday night elected the nation's fastest growing union, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), to represent them.

The final count was 144 to 21 in the secret ballot election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board. CNA/NNOC will represent 300 RNs at the hospital.

Following the Whittier vote, CNA/NNOC has now grown by more than 350 percent in the past decade, and won elections for nearly 25,000 RNs at 73 hospitals since 2001.

CNA/NNOC's growth has been especially explosive in Southern California. In 2000, CNA/NNOC represented 6,000 Southern California RNs in 13 hospitals. With Whittier, the numbers have grown to over 23,000 RNs in 49 hospitals.

Additionally, CNA/NNOC has won elections for 800 RNs in the past two weeks in two states, California and Nevada. RNs at Saint Mary's Regional Medical Center in Reno voted to join CNA earlier this month. Overall, CNA/NNOC has more than 76,000 members in all 50 states today.

"An 87 percent vote - what an incredible testament to the determination of the Whittier nurses to join together and with CNA/NNOC on behalf of their patients, their colleagues, and the nurses across California," said Geri Jenkins, RN, a Southern California member of the CNA/NNOC Council of Presidents. "I'm so proud of the Whittier nurses, and our phenomenal, ongoing growth in Southern California."

"We are happy about our CNA/NNOC victory," said post-partum care RN Irma San Luis. "It will help bring a strong united nurse voice for patient care at Whittier."

"Our victory unites us with San Gabriel colleagues so together we can improve patient care and nursing standards for all Southern California RNs," said Cecilia Caspe, RN.

RNs at Whittier, a former Tenet Healthcare hospital, will now be part of the AHMC Healthcare system with San Gabriel Valley Medical Center, itself once part of the Catholic Healthcare West chain. AHMC was formed in 2004.

California Nurses Association