Public Health Nursing, Advocacy and collective bargaining: The challenge in the era of union busting

Over the past two years our large state university has been engaged in a struggle to organize the faculty into one union representing both tenured and nontenured faculty. The administration of the university has continued to oppose the efforts and although the faculty obtained the required amount of card signatures to unionize, the process remains stalled in legal appeals. Throughout the organizing efforts, the College of Nursing remained particulatly wary of unionization, drawing on historic mistrust of collective bargaining. This perceived reluctance of Nursing to take a strong stand on behalf of a right to organize contradicts the legacy of strong social activism within Public Health Nursing. It also served to isolate the College of Nursing from the larger academic community. The Administration's refusal to accept a union representing both tenured and nontenured faculty raises essential questions about the criteria for tenure in the larger university system and within Nursing specifically. In this era of right to work and union busting, these issues suggest important questions related to class, social and economic disparities and the right to unbridled academic discourse. The history of public health nursing with its strong foundation of advocay, action and courage has much to contribute to this crucial dialogue.