The Results Are In

By now the members of WSNA should know the results of their state elections, including the fact that I did not succeed in my bid for Labor Chair. That honor went to Edna Cortez, whom I believe will be able to apply her years of experience in the labor movement to the position as many others could not. I would never say that my personal loss in this election is a loss for the union, and would be shocked if there were many disruptions during her term. Edna isn't new to this field. She knows what she's doing.

The point wasn't simply to win (although that would have been nice too 😉). The point was to demonstrate through my own actions that the thing cold be done.

I've said before that nurses aren't very good at unions and this is one of my examples.

No healthy government or organization exists without open and honest disagreements and occasional friction. That's just an echo chamber and no one has ever found themselves better off for spending time in one. Yet open and honest disagreement is not something I see much of within my union and that worries me.

It worries me because I hear a lot of it when I talk to the members in my bargaining unit. I hear it when I talk to members in other bargaining units. I heard it at the leadership meeting and I heard it at convention.

The only place I do not hear it is at the table where these larger conversations should be held.

I see it in the lack of engagement with the union at every level, with the traditionally poor voter turnout, both for contracts and all elections.

I see it in our uncontested elections, which result in the defacto appointment to a position by the nominations search committee.

There is a thing they do in politics, maybe elsewhere too, after an unsuccessful campaign. The autopsy report. You sometimes hear this referenced in relation to particularly surprising or large losses/wins. I think the first time I ever heard the term in this context was after Mr. Obama's first election and the surprising loses of the Republican Party. My major was still political science at that time, and such things held an above average interest to me.

Now here I sit, at the end of an unsuccessful campaign.

There may be things that I would have done differently if I could go back (who can ever truly say there isn't?). Yet I feel no need to perform an autopsy and I'm going to tell you why.

I am okay with the fact that I lost.

I wanted to win, of course I did, it would have been utterly foolish to try for a role I had no interest in. Much more than that I wanted to show that I, that anyone, can run for any position within their union. I wanted to demonstrate that the recommendations of the search committee are just that, recommendations and not the bestowing of what is supposed to be an elected position.

And I wanted people to vote.

Honestly, why would anyone care enough to bother voting when no one is running in a contested position? When no one is challenging the accepted norm of how things should be done? When the issues are always the same, the stakes null? When it seems that it is always the same names on the ballot, if not always in the same position, and you have no idea how they got there, but they never seem to change?

You would never say that is how a healthy democracy functions, so how can we say that's how a healthy union functions?

We can't. Not if we are going to be honest with ourselves.

And why would we ever expect that, or anything else to change, if no one ever tries?

So I tried. I didn't win. It was honestly a long shot that I would.

What I did do though, is pull nearly half of the vote.

It's a respectable loss, to be sure, but that's not why that bit of information is important. It is important because it shows everyone else in WSNA, whatever their position, that there is a sizable portion of the voting membership that agrees with my platform. A sizable portion of the voting membership that wants to see things done differently, that wants to have a different conversation.

It shows us all that those who want change may be in the minority, but not by much. And that they're paying attention.

It is my goal to see more contested positions in the next election. To see more honest conversation and disagreement between the members and those that represent them. It helps no one for those who are dissatisfied to gripe in the break room or at the nurses station. You do not have to agree with everything WSNA says and does to run for an elected position, in fact I would hope that you didn't . Once again, echo chamber, bad.

And here's the thing guys, we are only as strong as the work we are willing to put in.

Why is this an example of how nurses are bad at unions?

Because I am willing to bet that many, too many, of our members didn't think you could run against someone. Because I am also willing to bet that I am one of the first, if not the only, member to ever have the union distributed campaign material on my behalf. Which is an absolute right of union members under the union members bill or rights.

Because people were angry and even offended that I would run against someone with so much experience and recognition within the organization. Not because of her knowledge and experience alone, but because running against people simply isn't done. (Which is by no means meant to imply this was the behavior of our new Labor Chair. I have never known her to be anything but courteous and unfailing enthusiastic in all union endeavors)

The waters ahead are fairly choppy, folks. We are by no means set for a smooth ride into port. We can't afford to complain to each other and do nothing to fix the problem any more. We can't afford to be bad at unions any more.

So, here's to hoping that my candidacy made some folks think differently about our processes. Here's to hoping that we all get more comfortable with disagreement and growth as we move forward.

After all, when something stops growing (no matter how painful the process) it tends to end in a celestial discharge.

Finis