MNA makes bold change in leadership, direction

The MNA Board of Directors on December 1 announced a change in its leadership to reflect the organization’s commitment to pursue a more progressive and proactive agenda to address what the organization believes is a growing crisis in health care caused by corporatization and managed care. The Board also voted to continue its efforts to pursue independence from its national organization, the American Nurses Association, which the MNA sees as too moderate in its positions to adequately address the needs of staff nurses on the frontlines of health care.

The leadership changes at the MNA come on the heels of a closely watched vote at its annual business meeting in November, where the vast majority of the organization’s membership voted to support disaffiliation, but narrowly missed the two-thirds margin required to pass a bylaw change allowing disaffiliation from the ANA. 

The Dec. 1 Board meeting was the first since the annual business meeting. The Board’s first order of business was to vote 9 – 4 in favor of a motion to reaffirm its commitment to disaffiliate from the ANA. Its next order of business was to vote to appoint a new executive director.

The Board has appointed Julie Pinkham, RN, as the new executive director of the 20,000 member association to replace Mary Manning. Pinkham, who has been a staff member at MNA since 1989, has spent the last five years as the director of the Association’s Labor Relations Department. During her tenure, Pinkham has revitalized and grown the MNA’s unionized membership, leading a series of successful organizing drives, and drawing national recognition for the MNA’s strong positions and activism around issues of safe staffing, mandatory overtime and occupational health and safety. Under her leadership, the MNA has become one of the leading and most progressive voices for staff nurses and patients in the era of managed care and health care corporatization. 

Once these decisions were made, MNA President Karen Daley and four other Board members immediately resigned their positions from the board. The board members resigning included

Vice President Jean Watson Driscoll, Treasurer Margaret Barry, District 2 Director Jacqueline Hayes and District 4 Director Mary McKenzie. 

The Board then proceeded to consult the MNA bylaws to follow the procedure for filling the vacancies on the board. Under MNA bylaws, if a board member resigns, the person with the most votes who ran for office in that seat is eligible for appointment to the position. In the case of the presidency, it is the sitting vice president that assumes the role.

The Board then appointed Denise Garlick as president of the organization. Garlick, a staff nurse and long-time member of the organization’s Cabinet for Labor Relations, was in line under the bylaws for the presidency following Daley’s resignation. She was the sitting vice president, having filled the role of Jean Driscoll, who had also resigned. 

In addition to Garlick, the Board appointed Elizabeth Joubert as treasurer, Nora Watts to fill the vacated District 2 seat and Norma Ouellette to the District 4 seat. At-large board member Margaret O’Malley was then appointed the new vice president of the association, leaving a seat open for her at-large seat. The Board is attempting to determine who is eligible to accept this position, and expects to make that decision as soon as possible. With these new appointments, this is the first time in the history of MNA that all board of director seats and the presidency are filled by staff nurses.

“I am humbled and honored to assume leadership of this organization,” said Garlick. “The changes that were made today in our organization demonstrate a new and revolutionary change in MNA that has been building for a long time. Our membership, predominantly staff nurses toiling at the bedside under horrendous conditions, have demonstrated to us that they want the MNA to take bold steps and take strong stands to protect their patients and themselves. This is truly a day of celebration for every staff nurse in Massachusetts, and ultimately for our patients.”

The first order of business for the newly constituted board of directors was to pass a motion committing the organization to hold a special business meeting within six months, at which time a vote to disaffiliate from the ANA will be taken. 

“Our membership has spoken and we have heard them,” Garlick concluded. “They want an MNA that speaks loud and clear on issues impacting staff nurses and those who support staff nurses. This organization is now poised to raise that voice clearly and unequivocally.”