MNA Nurses Reject Damaging Image of Nurses
Committee for Vision - Not Division, August 2010
Massachusetts Nurses Association members throughout the Commonwealth are calling upon Meredith Scannell and other members of their slate of candidates from Brigham & Women’s to pull their recent campaign flyer immediately from further circulation.
The flyer, entitled “Nurses for Sale” and depicting a provocatively-attired nurse firing a machine gun, is harmful to the nursing profession. It must be soundly rejected by all who have worked hard to achieve a positive image of our profession. Along with Scannell, the others who are condoning this outrageous flyer include Barbara Norton, Michael Savoy, Mary Lou Stock, Jean Cabral, Trish Powers, Paula Asci, Debra Donahue and Thomas Adams. All are candidates from Brigham & Women’s and hope to be elected to the MNA Board. Many RNs who work at the Brigham have demanded Scannell and others on her slate cease and desist distribution of the flyer.
Hopefully, MNA RNs will think twice before casting their votes for these candidates who would circulate such a disturbing violent image. Scannell and the others must be rejected for positions on the MNA board.
Vice President: Karen Coughlin, Taunton State Hospital
Treasurer: Ann Marie McDonough, Tufts Medical Center
Director, Labor: Vote for All
Sandra Hottin, Mercy Hospital
Ellen Smith, UMass Medical Center, University Campus
Donna Dudik, Boston Medical Center
Tiffany Diaz Bercy, North Shore Medical Center
Barbara Tiller, Tufts Medical Center
Director At-Large, Labor: Vote for All
Beth Amsler, Newton-Wellesley Hospital
Marie Ritacco, Saint Vincent Hospital
Diane Michael, Providence Hospital
Director At-Large, General: Vote for All
Fabiano Bueno, Boston Medical Center
Katie Murphy, Brigham & Women’s Hospital
Ginny Ryan, Faulkner Hospital
Gary Kellenberger, Westboro State Hospital
Interesting post…
Interesting post… a complete lie of course. It’s pretty pathetic that in the absence of ANY argument against the reformers calls for each member having a vote, the ending of closed union publications and the ending of Board gag policies, that the Vision and Division folks you’ve allied yourself with would back something like this fabrication. I get the division part, but what's the vision... more of this? How ironic is it that since The Board of Directors has closed off our Union media to the members, that we are both forced to have this conversation here.
Our campaign is about voting rights for ALL members, transparency and open publications... not propaganda and bogus scandal stories.
Mike Savoy RN
Dartmouth, MA
Loyal MNA Member since 1997
Give me a break
Who's lying, Mike? Meredith Scannell's leaflet is an affront to all nurses and to nursing. What's behind this seething hatred of the National Nurses United? I suspect it's hatred of the pioneering California Nurses Association, the first state association to shake off the pro-company ANA and the first to win enforceable RN-to-patient ratios, something we could have used your whole bargaining unit's support for in the lead-up to the 2008 show-down. There's no freedom of speech for dissenters within your bargaining unit, yet you freely insult and attack the elected members of the MNA Board of Directors at every turn. Leadership is elected to lead. With the current mail ballot, we'll see if that leadership is affirmed or rejected. We've had a tradition, at least going back to the revolution of December 1, 2000, of having free-wheeling discussion and debate, with a lot of brainstorming on problems facing the membership and the organization. But a chill has sadly come over these deliberations, with distortions and quotes out of context appearing on the internet within hours of adjournment. So it seems more perfunctory now, but votes can only be unanimous when your good buddy Jim Moura agrees, as happens from time to time. I happen to agree that the Massachusetts Nurse would be improved with a letters-to-the-editor section, and the Board has had some discussion about that. A bylaw amendment would be too rigid, but the atmosphere needs considerable improvement to be able to have that discussion again. And I choke when you use the word transparency. A few years ago the old districts of MNA were reshaped to be regional bodies, primarily made up of the chairs of all the bargaining units in the region or their designees. For the two years that I chaired Regional Council 5, I regularly and systematically hounded Barbara Norton, the chair of the largest bargaining unit in the state, your bargaining unit, to come to meetings or send someone from the committee. (Years ago when I chaired the Cabinet for Labor Relations, that was a goal of mine, to get the chairs together to share experiences and to launch mutual campaigns, to build solidarity, in other words.) And every time, she told me she couldn't come and couldn't find anyone on her committee to come either. You've already shared with me that you, obviously, were never told of this invitation. The chair, with or without the agreement of the other members of your committee, failed to meet the needs of the other bargaining units, and of her own. Yet now this elitist clique wants to run the whole state organization. Give me a break!
Sandy Eaton, RN
Quincy Medical Center (until they finally find a way to fire me)
Quincy, Massachusetts
Loyal MNA member since 1981
Bedside care giver since 1963