Since filing the bill, MNA has won widespread attention from both state and local industry watchers and policymakers, including the state's Governor. At the last meeting of the Governor's Task Force on Health Care Reform, MNA Executive Director Julie Pinkham raised the issue of the current nursing shortage, and the need for passage of safe staffing legislation as a means of creating working conditions that will allow for the recruitment and retention of nurses. Governor Paul Cellucci agreed with Pinkham, citing the nursing shortage as equal to, if not surpassing, the shortage of teachers in Massachusetts. He further expressed his desire to work with the MNA on solutions. In addition to its staffing bill, the MNA has also teamed up with the California Nurses Association to draft and file federal legislation to ban mandatory overtime, a practice being utilized by health care managers to compensate for a lack of adequate staffing.
Voluntary overtime is permitted under the legislation.
MNA RNs are concerned about model legislation unveiled by the American Nurses Association in conjunction with the release of its survey data. Instead, the ANA is proposing that its member states file a staffing bill that not only is very weak, but that also contains a provision that could accelerate the current staffing crisis. First, says the MNA, the ANA-proposed staffing bill merely calls for health care facilities to establish their own patient classification systems, with no mandate to adhere to the standards they create. Their suggested staffing legislation only calls upon the industry to develop their own standards for measuring staffing. This approach amounts to putting the fox in charge of the hen house.