By Richard Negri SEIU Local 121RN Health and Safety Director

RNs from around California were in Sacramento Feb. 20 to speak to the Cal/OSHA Standards Board about the 121RN / SEIU Nurse Alliance of California petition for a comprehensive workplace violence prevention standard for healthcare workers.

More than 16 nurses and healthcare workers from SEIU and UNAC/UHCP testified about their experiences with violence at work – a pandemic that affects everyone who works in the healthcare industry. We were also joined by Dorothy Wigmore, occupational health specialist at Worksafe; Dr. Richard Pan, Assemblymember representing Sacramento, Elk Grove, Galt, and Lodi, and Chair of the Assembly Committee on Health; and Kimberly Rosenberger of the SEIU California State Council.

Along with the petition itself, we provided the Standards Board with statistical data and scholarly research on workplace violence in the healthcare industry, the results of the survey we’ve been conducting about workplace violence, signatories to our petition in support of a standard, workers’ stories about violence on the job, and letters of support from unions and organizations dedicated to workers’ rights and health and safety on the job, which include:

• Service Employees International Union (SEIU) • SEIU California State Council • Nurse Alliance of SEIU Healthcare • Public Employees Federation of New York • American Nurses Association, California • United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals • Worksafe • UCLA Labor and Occupational Safety and Health Program

As we enter into the second phase of our campaign to minimize workplace violence for healthcare workers, we must continue to educate, mobilize, and organize ourselves around the issue, as we have done for more than a year.

The petition is now referenced with the Cal/OSHA Standards Board as Petition No. 538 and will be sent to Cal/OSHA’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health for evaluation. A decision to either grant or deny our petition will be made by the Standards Board within six months.

As we move forward, we need to keep up the campaign momentum. The next meeting of the Standards Board is on Thursday, March 20, 2014, in Oakland, at 10:00 am. If you can attend and speak in support of the petition, please contact me. Between now and then, sign our petition, email the link to your co-workers, family, and friends, and share it on your Facebook page.

[caption id="attachment_3432" align="alignleft" width="570"]SEIU 121 RN Liaison to the SEIU Nurse Alliance of California, Kathy Hughes, RN, and SEIU 121RN President Gayle Batiste, RN, (second and third from left respectively) with several SEIU Local 721 nurses at the Cal/OSHA hearing Feb. 20.[/caption]