Blog

Congress and the President: Just Because You Were Bullied, Don’t Take It Out on Our Seniors

Let’s try to remember a lesson we all should have learned as kids. Just because you were picked on by the neighborhood bully is no excuse to go home and kick the dog or punch your little brother. Maybe some inside the Beltway need a refresher course. Just because a handful on the right have shut down government and threatened default on the debt that’s no excuse to embrace proposals to slash Medicare and Social Security.

Karen Higgins, RN and NNU Co-president

Sign The Nurses' Petition to John Kerry Demanding a Public Health Eval or #NoKXL

Registered nurses from coast to coast are stepping up the challenge to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline with a demand that Secretary of State John Kerry provide proof that Keystone will not harm the health and safety of Americans prior to any final decision on the project. In addition, National Nurses United, the nation’s largest organization of RNs, is circulating an online petition to Kerry that will be presented to the State Department demanding the guarantee, and has released a new short video from nurses titled, “Don’t Pipeline My Patients.”

National Nurses United

RNs join Great Climate March Rally in Chicago & Fight Against Dangerous Pet Coke Piles

National Nurses United RNs know firsthand how attacks on our environment threaten public health. That’s one reason why NNU members from across the country are speaking out for environmental justice and joining the Sept. 21 climate march in New York City.

National Nurses United

The Same Fight

Members of the United Steelworkers union on strike from their jobs at the Tesoro Golden Eagle Refinery in Martinez, Calif. got a major boost today from registered nurses around the Bay Area who joined their picket line to show support and share stories about why it's critical for workers to have a say in their work in order to protect the health and safety of themselves and their communities.

Lucia Hwang, California Nurses Association

Massachusetts study shows RNs are overloaded

In conjunction with the beginning of National Nurses Week, a new study of registered nursed in Massachusetts released May 6 by the MassachusettsNurses Association establishes that hospital administrators are assigning too many patients to registered nurses, resulting in significant harm and even death for patients.

David Schildmeier

Nurses for Bernie community party in Fremont, CA.

Over the past few months, in living rooms & community centers across the country, nurses have been gathering to host parties in support of Bernie Sanders. Nationwide we’ve been coming together to talk about Bernie’s candidacy and brainstorm ways we can help. This past weekend, around 150 nurses and community members came together for a Nurses For Bernie Community Party in Fremont, CA.

National Nurses United

DNC Platform Committee Members Offended By Key Single-Payer Healthcare Advocate

The executive director of a major nurses union, which provided substantial support for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, spoke to the Democratic platform committee on June 17. She advocated for single-payer universal healthcare in the United States.

Kevin Gosztola, Shadowproof

Stop the greed

As a registered nurse who has worked many years in a San Francisco hospital, I see firsthand how patients’ conditions are aggravated by their inability to pay for their medications. Making choices between paying for their meals, rent and medicine is a day-to-day reality for many.

Jane Sandoval, RN writing in the San Francisco Chronicle

What are Safe Staffing Ratios and why are they so important to all of us?

Many Americans may be surprised to know that California is the only state in the country with mandatory limits on the number of patients a nurse can be assigned at one time. Now nurses across the country are pushing for national legislation.

Pattie Lockard, Nurse Talk Radio

Caring Fiercely: Nurses Tell Dems Why They Won’t Sit Down, Be Quiet in Fight for Single Payer

As California’s single payer bill, S.B. 562, continues to occupy its parking space in the California Assembly — courtesy of Speaker Anthony Rendon’s decision last month to table the bill — nurses in California have noticed a familiar trend.

Bonnie Castillo, NNU Director of Health and Safety