well. When the AFT and the National Education Association signed a tentative merger agreement in 1998, RIFTHP leaders refused to immediately commit to a state-level merger (but supported the national effort). RIFTHP began organizing nurses in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Its most significant effort in this area came when it organized more than 1,000 registered nurses at Rhode Island Hospital in August 1993. But in 1998, more than 3,500 health care workers belonging to RIFTHP disaffiliated in a dispute over how much money should be spent on organizing new members. Although RIFTHP and the AFT disputed the election results and sued former staff who went to work for the new union (the United Nurses and Allied Professionals), the AFT lost these challenges. Activities The Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals is considered one of the most active political groups in the state of Rhode Island. It sued to oppose the shut-down of Rhode Island state government during a budget crisis in 1991, fought to keep full-time union leaders (who were former public employees) in the state pension system, worked to enact strong constraints on charter schools in the state's charter school law (the resulting law is one of the most restrictive in the nation as of 2004), supported stronger and clearer curriculum standards, sued to stop the state from penalizing retired public employees who were enrolled in more expensive health care plans, opposed binding arbitration for teacher union contracts, opposed merit pay, fought reductions in retiree pensions, and sought to limit the role of school-wide committees in establishing teacher assignments, class sizes and layoff rules. A significant network of unionized teachers interested in applying new union structures and models to creating high-quality schools, part of the Teacher Union Reform Network (TURN), is also active within RIFTHP. There have been some media reports that this network has had an influence on RIFTHP, and that the state federation is more willing to embrace some union and school reform efforts. In 2006, RIFTHP and the NEA affiliate in Rhode Island issued a joint report which focused on poverty and its many negative effects on children (such a malnutrition, unstable or violent home situations, lack of access to books and educational items like crayons or paper, and little access to high-quality early childhood programs) as key issues in the school reform effort. The report dismissed criticism that collective bargaining agreements