As Labor Day approaches, National Nurses United offers a look at the critical achievements of unionized nurses—as a collective force for healing—in upholding the wellbeing of our country, our communities and the planet.

“I couldn’t be more proud of RNs for standing up again and again to protect public health. That has been true inside hospitals, where our nurses fight for the highest standards of patient care, and also out in the world, where they campaign for the economic, environmental and racial justice that is critical to the overall health of our country,” says NNU Co-President Jean Ross, RN. “Labor Day highlights the importance of protecting nurses’ right to continue working collectively for a healthier world.”

The positive impact of RNs in the public arena can be traced back to the earliest American nurses. These RNs, who included women like Lillian Wald and Lavinia Dock, saw communities in desperate need and poverty—whether it was from poor sanitation, lack of opportunities for children working in sweatshops, or no access to healthcare. To advocate for their patients’ health, these nurses understood that they needed to advocate for social reform on a broader level; many early 20th century RNs were deeply involved in social movements. Wald and Dock were representative of nurses who expanded the role of RNs in advocating on behalf of the public interest by speaking out on issues such as women’s suffrage, child labor law protections, and union and worker’s rights.

Landmark Gains and Continued Points of Advocacy for Union Nurses

Today, nurses continue this tradition of public health advocacy and social reform. To commemorate Labor Day, here are some important causes the RNs of National Nurses United have recently championed—and continue to work toward:  

Organizing thousands of RNs in previously non-union hospitals:  Since its founding 5 years ago, NNU has helped nearly 25,000 RNs in over 50 hospitals organize into NNU.  This union organizing record is among the best in the US labor movement. By organizing to join NNU, RNs have won landmark patient care provisions in their NNU union contracts, and guaranteed their ability to advocate for their patients without fear of retaliation. The results have led to dramatic improvements in patient care and RN retention and recruitment, and have helped defeat employer attempts to worsen working conditions, along with pay and benefits, for hospital RNs. The addition of many thousands of RNs into NNU also strengthens NNU’s overall efforts to heal America, and provides hope and power to the American labor movement.

 Safe Staffing Ratios: Studies have proven that safe nurse-to-patient staffing ratios improve patient outcomes and save lives. In 1999, California became the only state in the US with comprehensive nurse-to-patient ratios, won by NNU RNs after years of battle against the powerful hospital lobby. Meanwhile, across the U.S., hospitals continue tojeopardize patient care with chronic short staffing. That’s why NNU is pursuing federal and state laws mandating nurse-to-patient ratios.

Proper safety procedures to protect against infectious diseases: In 2014, NNU facilitated the U.S. arm of a global RN Ebola action. In 14 states and the District of Columbia—as well as from Ireland to the Philippines—over 100,000 nurses protested lax Ebola protections/guidelines. NNU’s work led to California Gov. Brown directing the California Occupational Health and Safety Administration to upgrade existing Ebola guidelines to the highest possible protections, including HazMat suits. Ebola may be a harbinger of future pandemics, for which U.S. hospitals are still not prepared, and NNU continues to fight at the federal level for the highest protections against infectious diseases, to ensure those with the power to save countless lives are around to do that job.

Other critical protections for patients, nurses: Each year, thousands of RNs suffer back and musculoskeletal injuries while providing care. In 2014, NNU fought for and won safe patient handling regulations in California, requiring hospital employers to have staff and equipment available at all times to assist with patient mobilization. NNU nurses also won California’s landmark Healthcare Workplace Prevention Act in 2014, to address the fact that violence against hospital workers is almost five times greater than the average worker in all other industries combined. Rather than criminalizing perpetrators, who are often mentally ill or brain injured patients, this legislation—a model for the nation—holds hospitals accountable for prevention before the violence occurs, protecting nurses, patients and families.

 Medicare for All: With health care costs that account for nearly a fifth of Gross Domestic Product, the U.S. spends almost double what most wealthy countries spend on health care, and yet, by virtually every measure, has worse outcomes. RNs know that a government financed health care system—known widely as a “single-payer” system—is the answer. On July 30, 2015, Medicare turned 50, and RNs and other advocates conduced actions throughout the U.S.—part of a campaign to expand Medicare to everyone as the most cost-effective way to provide this single standard of high-quality care for all, without financial barriers.

Climate Change: A World Trade Organization study attributes one in eight deaths worldwide to air pollution. Who better to lead the battle against environmental degradation than nurses, who are on the front lines, helping to treat asthma, emphysema and other chronic respiratory diseases that are triggered and worsened by carbon emissions? Whether it be addressing international conferences in Peru, opposing the Keystone XL Pipeline or marching with striking oil workers in California for safer oil refineries, RNs and allies are working to arrest perhaps the gravest threat to public health in the 21st century.  

 Robin Hood Tax on Wall Street: This tiny tax—about a nickel for every $10 exchanged—is a tax on the very Wall Street transactions that triggered the Great Recession. Economists estimate that such a tax could generate between $300 and $350 billion a year, helping to heal communities by funding a single-payer health system, eliminating student debt, ending HIV/AIDS, or building affordable housing. National Nurses United is part of a broad, worldwide coalition that supports a Robin Hood Tax.

And in the electoral arena:

Campaigning for Bernie Sanders for President: NNU was the first national union to endorse Bernie Sanders for President. In announcing the endorsement, NNU Executive Director RoseAnn DeMoro noted his issues “align with nurses from top to bottom,” including those cited above—Medicare for all, a tax on Wall Street speculation to heal American communities, robust action on climate change—and a host of other priorities. NNU leaders and activists continue to be a significant presence in the Sanders campaign.

Imagine if the tens of millions of nurses in the world start working actively together with the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, 16 percent of the planet’s population, on confronting the health consequences of climate change and environmental degradation.

And, jointly pressing all nations – including the most recalcitrant, our own – to accept healthcare as a fundamental human right.

That’s the goal of a petition campaign we’ve started seeking an audience with leaders of Global Nurses United with Pope Francis during his visit to the United States in September. Sign it online at http://www.congressweb.com/nnu/19.

GNU, of course, is the global federation of 20 unions of nurses in 18 countries in the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia, and Europe, including NNU, all of whom have been leading voices in their countries in fighting for healthcare justice, from pollution to the climate crisis, to the work for universal, guaranteed healthcare for all.

What precipitates this call for an audience with Pope Francis is the remarkable encyclical on the environment issued by the Vatican in June.  (It can be read in full at http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html)

Much of the press attention on the encyclical singled out one flamboyant line: “The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.”

Sadly, true enough. But there is far more. Pope Francis acknowledged the alarming rise of associated health hazards that nurses, including NNU members, have spoken out about for years.

“Some forms of pollution are part of people’s daily experience,” the Pope wrote. “Exposure to atmospheric pollutants produces a broad spectrum of health hazards, especially for the poor, and causes millions of premature deaths. “There is also pollution that affects everyone, caused by transport, industrial fumes, substances which contribute to the acidification of soil and water, fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides and agrotoxins in general.”

That’s certainly not news to NNU members, who have been in the forefront of nationwide protests against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, petcoke mounds in Chicago and Detroit, toxic spills in Michigan and Arkansas, tar sands oil trains, polluting refineries in Long Beach and Richmond, Calif., and so many other locales.

Additionally, the encyclical noted, “Climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political, and for the distribution of goods. It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day.”

Again, that is in concert with the work of GNU members who have marched across the Golden Gate Bridge, testified in Congressional hearings and before local governments from coast to coast, and been a leading voice on the climate crisis.

Why? We know that climate disruption has been linked to a wide range of health problems associated with the unexpected spread of contagious disease including Ebola, cholera, bird flu, dengue fever, yellow fever, and other epidemics; malnutrition linked to drought and deforestation; bacteria-related food poisoning; and the escalating occurrence of super storms.  

And we have warned that fossil fuel pollution, and other environmentally associated contaminants that infect air, rivers, lakes, oceans, and food supply, have been directly linked to dangerous increases in heart and respiratory disorders, cancer, birth defects, skin and gastro-intestinal illness, and other health factors leading to premature death.

Not to mention how the fossil fuel industry, one of the most powerful economic forces on the planet, uses its clout in Congress and in other countries to block meaningful action on reversing the disastrous effects of climate change and reining in the polluters. Their colossal influence is one reason the Pope can observe that “frequently no measures are taken until after people’s health has been irreversibly affected.”

Pope Francis calls “for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all.”

Nurses who are on the front lines in taking care of people whose health is directly compromised by these trends should be a part of that dialogue.

And, it also offers an opportunity to continue our GNU and NNU efforts to press every nation, especially ours, to accept and act on the premise that healthcare is a human right, that everyone should have an equal right to healthcare that’s not based on ability to pay, socio-economic status, gender, health behavior, or country or area of residence. In the United States alone, studies have reported a 40 percent increased risk of death for those without health coverage. Lack of health coverage or excessive costs for care result in numerous adverse health outcomes, delays in needed care, and higher societal costs.

“Our common home is falling into serious disrepair,” said the Pope. “Hope would have us recognize that there is always a way out, that we can always redirect our steps, that we can always do something to solve our problems. Still, we can see signs that things are now reaching a breaking point, due to the rapid pace of change and degradation” that have put major world regions and people now at high risk, he writes.

Together, the moral authority of the Vatican, as evidenced already by Pope Francis’ groundbreaking encyclical on climate change, and the high public regard for nurses offers an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate international efforts to redress these health emergencies.  Indeed, delay and inaction is no longer an option.  

The registered nurses of St. Joseph Health System (SJH) have recently released a new report, “Falling From Grace,” on ethical and patient care concerns at SJH hospitals. A Catholic network of hospitals, established in 1920 by nuns with a mission to heal the sick and needy, SJH has grown into a wealthy corporation with billions in assets, operated by lavishly compensated executives. (According to the most recent SJH tax returns, CEO Deborah Proctor earns $2.05 million per year.) The SJH nurses, whose collective voices are reflected in this new report describe a very different health system today—one that puts patients and nurses at risk.

As reflected in the report, SJH has:

• Reaped millions in tax subsidies from California taxpayers, while providing among the lowest amount of charity care of any Catholic system;
• Reduced patient access to registered nurses, other caregivers, and support staff, leading to unsafe staffing levels and delays in care;
• Invested patient care and tax subsidized funds into for-profit companies, including hedge funds in the Cayman Islands;
• Launched a system-wide campaign to illegally restrict the rights of its RNs to organize a union to advocate for improved treatment of patients and RNs.

Download the report at: SJHFallFromGrace.com

Please help nurses tell SJH to put patients above profits!
Take a moment to send an email to CEO Deborah Proctor expressing your concerns.