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Nurse Unions Ask for Changes in Magnet Program

Average application costs range from $9,765 for 100 beds or less to $47,250 for between 101 and 949 beds.

The popularity of the Magnet Recognition Program continues to increase among hospital administrators and decrease among nurses who work in hospitals that are pursuing the designation. As more facilities prepare for the "Magnet journey," nurses are seeing precious resources diverted from patient care and quality initiatives to funding the elaborate and expensive application process ( UNA Action, Winter 2005). And now new concerns are being raised about the program’s lack of commitment to the work environment of nurses.  

RNs Working Together (the AFL-CIO RN-Industry Coordinating Committee) has been hearing reports from affiliate nurse unions that unfair labor practices, anti-union campaigns and even strikes have not slowed down the Magnet journey nor removed the affected facilities from consideration for Magnet status.  

“We would feel better about the Magnet program if we saw some commitment to workforce and labor issues,” says Kathy Sackman, RN, president of UNAC/UHCP, AFSCME and UNA Co-Chair. “But so far we have not.”

In November 2006, six nurses from Resurrection Health Care in Chicago met with Elaine Scherer, national director of the Magnet Recognition Program, to talk about those exact issues. In spite of significant quality problems and management’s hostility to AFSCME Council 31’s organizing campaign ( UNA Action, Winter 2005), several of the system’s hospitals are being reviewed for Magnet designation. Scherer assured the nurses that Magnet staff would look into their allegations. Unfortunately, there has not been any indication that the meeting had an effect on the application process.  

As a follow up to this meeting — and the growing criticism of the program from other unions — Steve Francy, executive director of RNs Working Together, sent a letter in January 2007 to the director of the Magnet Recognition Program calling for rule changes.  The letter demands that facilities with administrators who are actively hostile to unions and union organizing campaigns be disqualified from achieving Magnet status. Francy’s communiqué also questioned the integrity of the program if it continues to reward hospitals that "quell nurses’ concerns and paper over serious quality problems." 

The letter was signed by AFSCME and the other nine unions of RNs Working Together.  If you have a Magnet story, we’d be interested to hear about it. You can e-mail us at kcox@afscme.org.

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