National Nurses United

NATIONAL NURSE,™ (USPS publication permit number 0807-560/ISSN 2153-0386 print/ISSN 2153-0394 online) The Voice of National Nurses United, May-June 2018 (Volume 114/3) is published by National Nurses United, 155 Grand Avenue, Oak- land, CA 94612-2908. It provides news of or ganizational activities and reports on developments of concern to all registered nurses across the nation. It also carries gen- eral coverage and commen tary on matters of nursing practice, community and public health, and healthcare policy. It is published five times per year, with combined issues in January-February, March-April, May-June, July-August-September, and October- November-December. Periodicals postage paid at Oakland, California. POSTMASTER: send address changes to National Nurse, ™ 155 Grand Avenue, Oakland, CA 94612-2908. To send a media release or announce- ment, fax (510) 663-0629. National Nurse™ is carried on the NNU website at www.nationalnursesunited.org. For permission to reprint articles, write to Editorial Office. To subscribe, send $40 ($45 foreign) to Subscription Department. Please contact us with your story ideas They can be about practice or manage- ment trends you've observed, or simply something new you've encountered in the profession. They can be about one nurse, unit, or hospital, or about the wider landscape of healthcare policy from an RN's perspective. They can be humorous, or a matter of life and death. If you're a writer and would like to contribute an article, please let us know. You can reach us at nationalnurse@nationalnursesunited.org EXECUTIVE EDITOR Bonnie Castillo, RN EDITOR Lucia Hwang GRAPHIC DESIGN Jonathan Wieder COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR Charles Idelson CONTRIBUTORS Barb Brady, Gerard Brogan, RN PHOTOGRAPHY Jaclyn Higgs, Tad Keyes, Sarah Maple, Choppy Oshiro not going to lie. These past few months have been really upsetting. And you know, being nurses, we don't upset easily. First, we had the heart- breaking situation with asy- lum-seeking parents being forcibly separated from their children by Immigration and Customs Enforcement imple- menting Trump's despicable "zero tolerance" border policy. Seriously, even we were surprised that the administration would stoop that low, to take children too young to talk away from their caregivers, to put children in cages, to ship young- sters to faraway detention centers with no concrete system for tracking them and reuniting them with their families. Now more disturbing reports have surfaced about detained children suffering neglect; verbal, physical, and sexual abuse; drugging; work camp conditions; and more. And we learn that hundreds of kids may never be reunited with their fami- lies because their parents have already been deported, their parents have neither the money nor ability to post bond and track down their children, or the government's database sys- tem is simply inadequate. National Nurses United nurses everywhere have been incensed beyond belief, especially because we know all this has traumatizing physical and men- tal health consequences for both the children and their par- ents and guardians. Our El Paso nurses immediately organized to protest this outrageous policy and try to help. Hundreds of you signed up through Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN) to provide medical assessment services if needed. We must keep up pressure to stop and cor- rect these horrific human rights violations. Then Janus happened. It was a damaging U.S. Supreme Court decision we were all expecting, but the reality of the high court overturning more than 40 years of precedent, purely along political lines, was still distressing nonetheless. You can read much more about the Janus decision in this issue, but what it basically does is undermine the very con- cept of labor unions and worker solidarity by making every public-sector workplace an open shop. By undermining unions, the corporate forces behind this "right-to-work" movement believe, rightly, that they will have removed their main roadblocks to doing whatever the heck they want in pursuing maximum profits. Without unions, how would nurses call out their managers on an unsafe assignment? Fight for safe staffing laws? Win a decent livelihood for themselves and their families? Nurses will never stand for this, not in health care, and not in any other industry for the health and safety of our communities. Please educate your- self and your coworkers about this decision. We nurses must stick together, now more than ever. Deborah Burger, RN | Jean Ross, RN National Nurses United Copresidents Letter from the NNU presidents Stay connected FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/NationalNurses TWITTER: @RNmagazine, @NationalNurses FLICKR: www.flickr.com/nationalnursesunited VIMEO: www.vimeo.com/NationalNursesUnited DIGITAL MAGAZINE: NationalNurseMagazine.org

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