One of SEIU's heroes - members taking a leave of absence to organize voters in battleground states - recounts the struggle of nurses in 1199 against understaffing and mandatory overtime: In the past, the common practice of management was to threaten nurses with termination if they didn’t work mandatory overtime. However, because of the nation-wide nursing shortage, nurses weren’t concerned with termination because they could be rehired at a number of medical institutions. Moreover, a nurse from Mercy/Wilkes-Barre could potentially be rehired at Mercy/Scranton which is only about twenty minutes down Interstate 81. So, management’s tactic had lost its teeth. Now, the employer tells the nurses that they could be charged with patient abandonment and would recommend the PA State Board of Nursing revoke their licenses. Recently, the PA.S.B.of N. issued a statement that basically says the board will not prohibit a nurse from refusing to stay for a second shift when there is a shortage of staff. The statement went on further to say that the board is aware of no cases in which a nurse was disciplined by the board for failure to accept a second shift or mandatory overtime, when the nurse has properly informed her employer that she refuses to do the work. So, in response to this, the nurses at Mercy/Scranton have drafted and sent a letter to the Director of Nursing saying that as of June 1, 2004, the following nurses (list of names) are refusing to do mandatory overtime unless it falls within the criteria stated in their union contract (sec 25.4, of theirs). The letter goes on to say that the current cases of mandatory overtime are clearly not caused by emergencies, sick calls from staff or unplanned events. They identify the cause to be understaffed shifts that has been happening for years.