Registered nurses at Kindred Hospital in Westminster voted by 81 percent Wednesday to join the California Nurses Association, the state’s largest organization of RNs.
 
CNA will represent 150 RNs at the Orange County facility, a long term care, rehab hospital which is part of a large, Kentucky-based chain that operates transitional care, nursing homes, rehab and hospice facilities and other healthcare sites.
 
In a secret ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board, the RNs voted 97 to 23, 81 percent, for CNA.
 
“Our victory at Kindred was overwhelming,” said Janet Williams, a Kindred, Westminster RN. “We know that being members of the California Nurses Association we will finally have a voice to be able to advocate for our patients and ourselves. We look forward to making positive changes at Kindred Westminster.”
 
Like many such sub-acute sites, which provide a step below full acute care hospital services, conditions at many transitional facilities are sub-standard, often with short staffing and inadequate pay, benefits, and working conditions.
 
Many of those concerns were at play for Kindred Westminster RNs. The nurses, who began working to join CNA two months ago, voiced concern about not enough RNs to provide appropriate care, including for ill patients on floors that provide general medical care, as well as high health coverage costs, and no pay increase in three years.
 
CNA represents over 85,000 RNs in 200 facilities across California. CNA is also a founding member of National Nurses United, the largest U.S. organization of RNs representing 185,000 RNs in all 50 states. Since the 2009 founding of NNU, it has won elections for 16,000 RNs.