| University Hospital network
has 74 mobilizers Nurses keep Division 320 mobilized By SHERRY HALBROOK “Start spreading the news! There’s a rally today!” That paraphrase of the hit song “New York! New York!” could well be PEF’s theme song since it began mobilizing its members to turn out for same-day or next-day contract protests a year ago. But what if spreading the news means you have to notify nearly 700 members working in different buildings and on different shifts, and you only have a few hours to get the message out? June Edwards, who recently took the reins as council leader of PEF Division 320 at University Hospital in Syracuse, faces that daunting challenge every time there’s a statewide or Region 4 “Call to Action.” How does she do it? With a lot of help. “We were told to recruit one member mobilizer for every 10 members,” said Edwards, a nurse 2 at the teaching and research center. “I have 74 member mobilizers and I’m still looking for a few more to cover some small units with less than 10 members.” It’s not enough to have a small army of mobilizers, she said, they must be strategically placed. “I try to have at least one mobilizer on every shift, on every unit, on every floor of the hospital,” she said. And does the mobilizer network really get the word out? “I’ve used it for everything from rallies to benefits information and I’ve seen it work,” Edwards said. “Since I’m a nurse, I get around to a lot of floors and units and I ask people if they’ve heard about things. They tell me, ‘Yes, I’ve already seen that. It was posted.’ So, I know the messages are getting out there.” Edwards said the responsibility still falls on her to keep checking the PEF web page (www.pef.org) and other sources to make sure she is sending out the most useful and timely information to members through the network. Although it’s very difficult for the nurses to get time away from work to participate in rallies as far away as Albany, Edwards says she often sees them take time on their breaks to call the governor and legislators toll free new number! 877-255-9417). “They are very interested in what’s going on with their contract,” Edwards said. Division 320 members are also very interested in nursing and workplace issues, she said. “I recently sent out two surveys to our 680 nurses. One survey was just for our division and asked them about time, leave and seniority issues. The other survey was a pilot survey for PEF on nurse-retention issues. Out of the 680 surveys we sent out, the nurses returned 254 of them,” Edwards said. “That’s really an amazing return rate.” Now, she’s busy tabulating the results of the division survey and the union in Albany is going over the responses to the retention survey. “As soon as I have all the results of our survey, I’ll send them out to our members,” Edwards said. The survey response is one more indicator, she said, that while the division may be big and its members may be busy, that doesn’t mean they aren’t involved or can’t be bothered with union issues. And there are plenty of other signs of union activism. “Just the number of members willing to be mobilizers tells you how much people care,” she said. |