Leaders of this union have stated publicly that their goal is to destabilize and decertify as many nurse bargaining units and as many ANA-affiliated state nurses associations as they can. They hope to build RN power through new aggressive unionizing, campaigns in every state.

Their actions have included distributing false and misleading information to nurses across the country through a front group called the National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC). By working to divide nurses, CNA/NNOC is playing into the hands of many who oppose nurses on crucial issue such as safe staffing, mandatory overtime, workplace injuries prevention and unsafe floating practices.

 

The California Nurses Association (CNA) disaffiliated from (ANA) in 1995 following several years of believing that ANA was not giving them the financial support that was needed to increase collective bargaining activity in California. CNA asserted to its membership that dues money sent to ANA for all of its programs, including government affairs and practice standards, was wasted and produced no outcomes that benefited direct care nurses. CNA had demanded that ANA fund its massive lawsuit against a hospital chain over staffing. At the time of their disaffiliation, they had retained the ANA portion of the dues for a period of several months, which created a significant startup treasury for their new association. Shortly thereafter, California nurses who did not agree with disaffiliation from ANA formed their own affiliated organization, ANA/C.

 

Since 1995 CNA has attempted partnerships with several other union organizations, including the United Steelworkers, and, more recently, the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) which disaffiliated from ANA in 2000. The status of CNAs relationship with MNA is unknown, although they were both in Hawaii attempting to convince members of the Hawaii Nurses Association to disaffiliate from ANA.