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Canadian union campaigner Sharon Costello outlines how British Columbia nurses are using the arts to activate their membership base.

	Sharon Costello

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"It was my second month of nursing school. I was caring for a dying breast cancer patient. Only thirty two. I was much younger but she still didn't seem old enough to die. There was a do not resuscitate order: if she dies just let her go. I bathed her even though she didn't want it. And I needed to take her blood pressure. She looked tired. I thought I was doing it wrong because I couldn't get a reading. I kept going in and out of the room asking the teacher. The instructor finally got fed up with me and came in and even she couldn't get one because the patient was dying. It was low. She was dying. She was dead. I'd thought she was sleeping.

Later on her sister was crying down the hallway because she had died. I went back in the room and her soul had filled the room...that's the only way I can describe it. Her body was cold but in the room there was this heavy warm feeling. This four bed room with other patients and one dead woman. I never experienced death before...that was my first time. I never believed in the afterlife until I felt her soul in the room. I cried. I felt guilty, she was so tired and I'd washed her. My idea of life and death changed in that one day. Another nurse said: 'good thing you washed her, you won't have to wash her when she's dead.' The patient's family was coming to visit. First the husband, followed by the eight year old, then the four year old. A tragic dance of mourning...

Did you know the body makes noises after the spirit has passed away?" - Marianne Sawchuk, RN and member of the cast

( Anna character ) in the BCNU production of "Hurl, Hemorrhage, Heal - The Nurses' Musical" )

That was a personal story from a young RN, Marianne Sawchuk , who along with seventy other BCNU members told their stories as the basis of the creation of a play about nurses and their work. Marianne was also one of five nurses selected for the cast of the final play which toured all over the province of British Columbia

for six weeks this past spring.

The Nurses' play was a smash hit. It played over 22 shows in 15 different regions to about 4000 people and raised several thousand dollars for various charities and causes.

The media coverage was excellent, extremely positive and there was lots of it. The nurse/actors held public forums with the audiences after each show. They also did much of the TV, radio and newspaper interviews about the play, as well as other nursing issues, while they traveled through the various communities in BC.

Healthcare managers, politicians and other nurses as well as the general public were all invited to attend and filled out hundreds of comment sheets about the performance. Many of them were extremely moving and heartfelt and always in support of nurses.

Eighteen nurses from around the province organized each show in their area and they also often talked up the show and nurses' issues with the media.

The back page of the Program listed a number of things that nurses wanted the public to support and lobby our governments for. More education seats, more fulltime positions for nurses, more federal funding for Medicare, among others.

The play was part of a large campaign called "Valuing Nurses' Work" designed to highlight the importance and worth of Registered Nurses' (RNs) in our healthcare system.

The other part of this large campaign involved many small local worksite campaigns. These were aimed at addressing the nursing shortage though changes that would lessen nurses workload. Specifically, by reducing so-called "non-nursing" duties which have been increasingly loaded onto already overworked RNs. Duties such as answering phones, stocking shelves and delivering meal trays to name a few. Many of our members felt the quality of their working life and patient care were suffering due to increases in such duties.

The idea for the worksite campaigns had its roots in the job actions during our last round of bargaining. One of our most successful strategies was implementing a ban on non-nursing duties.

It improved conditions for many of our nurses and put enormous pressure on managers who had to deal with getting these other duties done.

Nurses from one hospital in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, who originally had resisted participating in ANY job action, became so inspired during the ban on non-nurse duties that even after bargaining ended they decided to continue. The nurses in the understaffed hospital lobbied management to relieve RNs of meal tray delivery duties. They called their campaign "Trayless in Nanaimo" and used innovative ways to demonstrate and document how much of their time was being spent on an array of non-nursing tasks. They put pennies in a jar for every task and then donated the proceeds to a charity. The local media followed the campaign closely and reported that on one ward 11.5 hours of RN time was being spent on these tasks. The nurses had a newsletter, held rallies, wore black T-shirts on one specific day, wore ribbons on another day and held regular campaign meetings.

They were successful and the end result was the allocation of a quarter of a million dollars from the Regional Health Authority to hire more support staff to deliver the meal trays. These nurses have continued their campaign and have since secured over $600,000 for more full-time positions for nurses and two educator positions. They've also secured more help with portering, 400 new phones for the rooms and are currently finalizing the addition of 4.5 more relief positions for their Emergency Dept. (worth about $300,000).

Our elected Council decided to see if other worksites might be able to adopt and adapt this campaign model. So they allocated funds to train members and provide worksites(branches) with local campaign budgets. The Council also did a road show to explain the "Valuing Nurses' Work" campaign to our members.

One of the resources that we provided nurses with to use in conjunction with their local campaigns were radio commercials. We also designed a newspaper ad that nurses could place in their local community newspaper during their campaign.

There are absolutely no limits to the creative ways that nurses will tackle this issue and reduce their workload.

The results from these initiatives are still coming in.

Our initial News Conference to kick off the campaign received a lot of news coverage as did a contest where our members submitted "The Most Ridiculous, Outrageous Duty" that they had to perform. The media loved it and so did the members. There were so many submissions that we published three newsletters full of the duties and then sent them out to our union stewards (branch representatives) and activists as well as publishing some of them in our magazine.

Recently, as a result of the worksite campaigns one Health Region recently announced 1.5 million dollars to hire support staff for overworked RNs and they have pledged another 1.5 million dollars in the near future to hire more RNs and support staff to address the nurses' workload problems. While announcing this funding the Vice-President of Human Resources said:

" We hope RNs in our region see the 3 million dollars as a clear message that we are listening to them and that we support them. We're trying to give nurses in our region the respect and value they deserve. If we respect and honour nurses while at the same time reduce their workload, I believe it will be easier to recruit and retain nurses."

We couldn't have said it better ourselves. In fact, nurses had been saying it for weeks. It was the key message in our overall campaign. Clearly the message was being heard.

Another group of nurses from a 160 bed Long Term Care Centre

( like your aged care ) discovered during their campaign that they were spending up to 50% of their time on duties other than bedside care. They will be meeting with management to present their findings and their demands for solutions.

One of the nurses involved in that campaign said:

" All the members were pleased with the campaign. They are happy to know that the union supports them and is trying to do something about our workload."

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So what do the BCNU theatre production and these worksite campaigns have in common?

They begin with and succeed through the experiences, knowledge and involvement of the members as their foundation and are driven by the engine of the nurses' creativity, dedication and actions.

What exactly is a campaign anyway?

Well, here's one definition.

" A clearly articulated set of goals, with strategies and an action plan to achieve these goals which includes membership participation in collective action."

-Ken Margolies, Cornel University, 1993, via Teresa Conrow, SEIU

AND

"The underlying philosophy is one that values all workers and their experience."

- Anne Harvey, Chief Operating Officer, BCNU

So what do we need to do to begin this kind of work? Based on the experience of BC's unionized nurses, four major things.

Increase our Education, Member Involvement and Communication AND assess our allocation of Resources.

We need education for our membership, our elected officers and our staff. Education that looks at facilitation and communication skills, strategic thinking and planning, action planning, media and lobby training, member involvement and evolving issues.

We need to recruit more members as stewards (branch representatives) and worksite union representatives.

We need to increase "actions" such as rallies or leafleting and increase member visibility in our workplaces, our communities and with our elected union representatives.

We to need to have members canvas other members one-on one, and do membership surveys.

In the BCNU we now mail out weekly to 1600 local union reps and stewards. That number has doubled since 1993. There are several union publications, a newsletter for stewards, a magazine for all members and lots and lots of Bulletins and information sent by FAX to worksites. The union has supplied the local union coordinators at the workplace level with Fax machines.

We need to build our links with the community through coalition work and working with other unions.

AND YES we may need to allocate more resources. It costs money to involve more members in the work of the union. At BCNU in 1995 members supported a dues increase from 1.35% to 2.0% based on the increased visibility of the union work. BCNU hired three Education Officers in the mid-nineties and BCNU also hired two Campaigns Officers over the past three years.

Why do we do campaigns?

Because often they can maximize the involvement of our members and active members are the best source of strength and effectiveness.

- BCNU "Update" magazine December, 1994

How do we actually go about undertaking issue-based worksite campaigns?

1) Listen - What are the members' "burning issues" in your workplace. Let's get rid of our preconceived ideas and our own agendas.

2) Collect experiences and views in a safe and open environment that fosters equality of participation - Everybody likely has a different view. Develop consensus through observing patterns and then, collectively set priorities.

3) Figure out how the group will work together - Will you vote or use consensus? Who will coordinate? Will we have a phone contact list, newsletters etc. How will we keep members, elected leadership and staff informed of our work.

4) Generate ideas- brainstorm, anything goes, encourage creativity

5) Establish collective priorities and issues - Set a goal and objectives. What do you want to achieve and how are you going to achieve it. Be specific.

6) Consider and develop strategies - Who are the decision-makers? What politics are involved? How will the members support us? Will the public support us? How should we use the media, if at all? What are the other challenges we'll face? What's Plan B, C, and D?

7) Check in and clarify regularly - How is it going? Are the members still supportive? What strategies might we now need to change?

8) Action Plans, Time Lines and Commitment - Have clear goals, objectives and key messages. Create very specific outlines of the tasks and who is responsible for them and by when. Together the group must design clear effective communications systems so that everybody will know what they need to know when they need to know it.

9) Evaluate and Celebrate - Determine what we've learned. What we did we do right, what could we have done better? Were members supportive? (why or why not ?) Did we achieve what we set out to achieve? If not, what other benefits resulted from our work? AND WE NEED TO BRAG. BE PROUD. Often our members underestimate or downplay their accomplishments. We need to acknowledge and profile our successes for all the members to see.

But what about apathy? How do we get more members involved?

Our issues must have personal meaning for our members. We need to make personal contact, really listen and value the input from members. We must treat one another with respect. Information must be provided in a timely way and our meetings need to be productive. Activities must be easy to get involved in, be based on members' ideas and be successful. This increases confidence.

Remember start small and build.

We also need to recognize and value that everyone has different skills, levels of commitment. We must welcome and reach out to the diversity of our membership. If we communicate clearly what we hope to achieve and what we expect from one another we will succeed. If we share power we increase power. We need to actively seek out members' views in decision-making, planning and actions. We have to regularly check-in with members to make sure they are "on-side" with the goals and purposes of our campaign or activities. We must all support one another and we should look for ways to MAKE IT FUN!

This is an edited version of a paper presented to the NSW Nurses Association in late July

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  Issue 65 contents

»	Chaudhry, Burrow Discuss Strengthening Unions' Stand
»	Shopping Centres' 'Pay to Work' Plan
»	Labor's IR Platform: Winding Back Reith
»	Redback clerks buck casual trend
»	No Joy in Ministerial Mind Slip
»	Parlt House Cleaners' Fight Gets Dirty
»	Rural Safety Lapses' Massive Cost
»	5000 Students Back the Hands that Feed Them
»	Mobile Phones Health Warning
»	Bank Staff Fight Fruitpicking Future
»	No Science in CSIRO Sell-Down
»	Hotel Workers Target Big Chains
»	Wheels of Justice Slow as Reporters Walk
»	Free Political Economy Classes for Activists
»	APHEDA plans Asian and Middle Eastern tours

»	The Soapbox
»	Sport
»	Trades Hall
»	Tool Shed

»	In defence of coffee
»	Rail commuter warns pollies
»	We want a bigger slice of pie
»	Latham should watch the Footy Show
»	Editor bagged

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