Frank Genung, RN
Secretary Treasurer
Frank Genung is Secretary Treasurer of the SEIU Florida Healthcare Union, the state's largest health care union. He received his Associates in Nursing degree in 1980 from Miami Dade Community College and works in the Intensive Care Unit of St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach. He served as Secretary of the Executive Board for SEIU Local 1991 for 4 years until St. Mary's Medical Center members voted to create the SEIU Florida Healthcare Union.
Awarded the Intensive Care Unit Nurse of the Year in 2003, he chose nursing because he was attracted to the variety of skills and jobs that are needed to provide quality patient care. As the Chapter Chair for St. Mary's Medical Center, he fostered nurse leadership as a bargaining team member and helped negotiate a contract with Tenet Healthcare Corporation, the for-profit company that owns St. Mary's Medical Center. Although initial contract bargaining sessions between Tenet and SEIU were difficult and disputes arose regarding benefits and pay increases, Genung helped organize an informational picket line outside the hospital and other employee activities that culminated in the settlement of a groundbreaking contract with significant improvements for St. Mary's Medical Center workers.
As a member organizer, Genung used his experience mobilizing hospital workers at St. Mary's Medical Center to help educate and organize health care employees at Parkway Regional Medical Center, a Tenet hospital in Miami. Thanks in part to Genung's dedication and tireless efforts, in March 2005, Parkway employees voted to form a union with SEIU and joined St. Mary's Medical Center as the two organized Tenet hospitals in South Florida. "I just feel that being united and supporting our union can only help our working conditions," said Genung. "I do this so health care workers have a voice."
This past May, Genung played a key part in encouraging his co-workers at St. Mary's Medical Center to vote to unite in the SEIU Florida Healthcare Union. "I feel it is important for all health care workers to come together because it really doesn't matter if I'm a nurse and I'm in a union with nursing home workers," said Genung. "To these large corporations we're just numbers and the more of us continue to push for better working conditions, the better we're able to raise patient care standards."