INDIVIDUAL LICENSES FOR NURSES

WHEREAS, individual licensure for nurses, which is currently regulated by each state, insures high professional standards of nursing practice, and institutional licensure undermines those professional standards; and

WHEREAS, institutional licensure allows an institution rather than the individual nurse to hold a license, and such institutional licensure permits employers to set standards for nursing practice according to their own economic criteria rather than according to safe nursing practice and quality patient care; and

WHEREAS, institutional licensure undermines the individual nurse's accountability by fragmenting and isolating nurses in their common causes and needs as professionals; and

WHEREAS, institutional licensure impedes the mobility and professional growth of nurses by indenturing them to one employer; and

WHEREAS, employers seek to deal with the nursing shortage by using institutional licensure to manipulate and control the nursing work force instead of providing incentives to promote recruitment and retention of qualified nurses in the work force:

RESOLVED, that AFT/FNHP supports the continuation of individual licensure for nurses and will actively oppose any and all efforts of any state to relinquish individual licensure and substitute institutional licensure.