Legislative Activity
PASNAP has been very active politically since its inception. It began pressing for an end to mandatory overtime in 2001, and drafted a bill which was introduced in the Pennsylvania General Assembly banning the practice in acute-care hospitals in 2002. The union has been able to get the measure reintroduced in each successive legislative session.
As part of its campaign to end mandatory overtime, the union has repeatedly polled Pennsylvania nurses about their hours, the acuity (level of illness) of their patients, and patient load. In 2001, the union's independently-conducted poll of 6,000 registered nurses in the state found that 56 percent of nurses would enter the profession today due to mandatory overtime and poor nurse-to-patient staffing ratios. At the time, the poll was the largest survey of RNs ever conducted in Pennsylvania. In 2004, a second poll of more than 2,500 registered nurses in the southeastern Pennsylvania region found that nearly one in three nurses planned to quit nursing within the next five years due to long working hours.
Read more about this topic: Pennsylvania Association Of Staff Nurses And Allied Professionals
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