Safe Staffing Campaign This year, there has been considerable analysis, planning, and focus on the state’s new safe staffing law. Highlights are below: Staffing Captain 2.0 Program
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Strategic Research Fueled Our Campaigns in 2021 In 2021, the Strategic Research Department worked hard to support NYSNA campaigns that were launched before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. We were pleased to support nurses as they sought dignity and respect on the job by offering research on new organizing opportunities, policy, the new safe staffing law, new COVID-19 cases in New York state, collective bargaining fights, and the strategic resource center. While our efforts were varied, we will highlight a few big projects such as new organizing research and the safe staffing campaign.
New Organizing Research To have a strong voice on the job nurses must unite with one another in a union. By working closely with our colleagues in New Organizing, we supported ongoing campaigns and offered research for union expansion in new regions. To identify new regions, we conducted strategic analysis of union density, NYSNA membership, staffing requirements and patient care.
We drafted an extensive analysis of RN union density statewide. The research focused on density by health system as well as geographic regions while accounting for overall health care worker density and union density in general. To obtain a deeper understanding of NYSNA’s reach and impact, and further assist with guiding us on where to focus efforts, we also included an accounting of where NYSNA’s membership and political strength had experienced the most influence. These findings were then coupled with another important component regarding reach and impact and that was in the area of new leads. We determined where our colleagues in New Organizing received leads from non-union nurses and applied that knowledge to our research. One final element included in our research was to account for the new staffing law that will go into effect January 1, 2022. We agreed there will be opportunities to use that law to facilitate New Organizing.
We’ve completed and distributed staffing summaries and report cards so facilities could measure and compare staffing levels. We successfully compiled the various and disparate staffing standards that NYSNA won both contractually and through representative work. We built a database of all available staffing requirements (ratios, fixed numbers of RNs, grids, etc.) into a centralized location. This allowed us to know exactly which days had poor and adequate staffing. Using this new tool, we built dashboards to enable our committees to help monitor implementation and compliance with the new safe staffing law. Examples of these dashboards are available on the NYSNA website. We continued to integrate Protest of Assignment campaign data into the Staffing Captains data as well. A quarterly update on staffing captains ensured that we captured trends in the program to help inform programmatic goals. Analysis of Staffing Bill
We assisted with the analysis of the staffing bill that was passed by the legislature in May of 2021. Specifically, we shed light on the context within which the bill was developed. We looked to the modeled language in Washington State and how that law was passed and structured. We examined enforcement of that law, the published guidelines, and measured the response of organized labor and affinity groups once the law was passed. We also investigated legislative responses following the introductory period of the legislation. We analyzed the implementation of the new standards in the long-term care bill introduced and passed in the state legislature. In 2022, we look forward to using these new tools to support nurses in their efforts to care for themselves and patients. 2021: We are one
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