Shift Change proposal for Veterans Affairs Nurses collective bargaining rights outline, action plan and legislative agenda

(This is a living document and is presented as a starting point for discussions with VA nurses about what our union could be for them under new rank and file leadership.)

Shift Change recognizes VA nurses as a key constituency of our union, nurses who are stewards of the largest socialized healthcare system in the United States, nurses who provide crucial safety net services across the country to one of our societies most at risk populations, veterans of military service. We believe VA nurses make up the largest single group of RN’s organized by CNA/NNOC (NNU) yet we believe VA nurses are critically under-resourced by our union, in terms of staff, organizational and legislative support. We believe that with new leadership, NNU could substantially increase VA worker's rights to collective bargaining within your union and without, while negotiating safe staffing and workplace violence language aggressively into your CBAs as mandatory subjects of bargaining with nurses currently protected under the Nurse Practice Acts. Collective Bargaining Agreements supersede the law where there is conflict over a mandatory subject - thus, a Union whose organizing and legislative priority is to push for the protection of and growth of collective bargaining rights for its employees will always have the strength to fight from the place where power is actually located in a union - it’s organized and assertive rank and file workers.

Click through this link to look at our current analysis of NNU's VA Collective Barganing Agreement and Legislative prospects: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BAYZ3ySDRcgxxzuXGyyJO5NR9JWUIcA4dc9nUSfQaig/edit?usp=sharing