ANA Calls U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Unfair to Nurses and Harmful to Patients Washington, DC . The justices have confused what nurses do as a routine part of their job with who the employer claims they are in the organizational hierarchy. We will continue to assert that the nature of nursing practice falls within the scope of collective bargaining.
Nurses are patients' best advocates.
Without guaranteed workplace protections, nurses who continue to speak out on patient safety issues run the risk of losing their livelihoods. In 1997, Caney Creek employees voted to join the Kentucky State District Council of the Carpenters Union, but the rehabilitation center defied an NLRB order to bargain with them, claiming they were supervisors and thus ineligible for union coverage. The rehabilitation center appealed the Board's ruling to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and won. But the NLRB asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case, and oral arguments were heard on Feb. 21, 2001. ANA advances the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Congress and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.