REPORT: October/November 2006

RNs lobby City Hall on nursing issues

by Rolando Tomas Infante

NYSNA members met with some of the most influential members in the New York City Council during its NYSNA’s fall New York City Lobby Day on Oct. 25.

“Our ability to have time with our legislative leaders in the city demonstrates the growing influence of NYSNA in the city’s labor movement,” said Nancy Kaleda, senior associate director of NYSNA’s Economic and General Welfare program. “We wanted to thank the council members for their continuing support of nurses and inform them of several existing issues confronting nursing today.”

NYSNA members expressed their appreciation to the council members who helped forward legislation to Albany to improve HHC nurses’ pensions. Although the bill was vetoed by the governor, the nurses asked council members to remember them when another request comes before them in the coming year.

Nurses also asked for council support for resolutions supporting NYSNA’s safe-staffing bill in Albany and a bill to provide tougher penalties for assaulting an RN in the line of duty, similar to existing bills protecting police and firefighters.

The lobbying nurses brought up NYSNA’s active participation in the “Save Our Safety Net” campaign to head-off arbitrary closing and downsizing of hospitals and nursing homes by the Berger Commission. The nurses encouraged the council members to convene and participate in public hearings in response to the commission’s recommendations that will be released in December.