Issue link: https://nnumagazine.uberflip.com/i/1439493
E very three years, National Nurses United delegates from across the country come together at the NNU con- vention to learn, recharge, strengthen our solidarity, and set the guiding principles for our union. The 2021 con- vention, held online from Oct. 12 to 14, was an especially critical time for nurses to gather and collectively look to the future. This year, we dreamed our way beyond just the immediate goal of ending Covid-19; we also allowed ourselves to imagine the kind of world nurses can create on the other side—a society based on care. "Our employers have failed us every single step of the way, from telling us we could wear bandanas for PPE in the early days—to the present moment, when they've tried to excuse their ongoing failure to fund full-time staff positions by telling us caring for four ICU patients or 10 med/surg patients is just our duty," said NNU Execu- tive Director Bonnie Castillo, RN, in the convention's keynote speech. "We are going to collectively refuse to accept things had to be this way. As union nurses, we're going to stand together this week and continue course correcting our way to a better world." After an exciting opening night, with NNU Presidents Deborah Burger; RN, Zenei Triunfo-Cortez, RN; and Jean Ross, RN holding intimate conversations with each NNU affiliate; an online art show; and a virtual dance party courtesy of the Rebirth Brass Band, regis- tered nurse delegates got to work in the opening plenary, "Our Fight is a Fight for the Future." Nurses were honored to welcome plenary panel guests and renowned scholars Silvia Federici and Robin D.G. Kelley, who opened our minds on the devaluation of care work in our present culture—and emphasized that RNs can play a crucial role in recentering care in society. "A capitalist society cannot survive movements, a transformation, that places the well-being of the community at the center," said Fed- erici, emphasizing that care work keeps all life going, even if capitalism makes the art and skill of care workers invisible. This truth really hit home for nurses, who saw so clearly during Covid that without our work and the work of other women-dominated care professions such as domestic workers and teachers, all of soci- ety shuts down. Federici and Kelley outlined the ways in which our current, profit- driven culture is fueled by division—racial injustice, gender injustice, 16 N A T I O N A L N U R S E W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G O C T O B E R | N O V E M B E R | D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 1 Care at the Core At NNU's 2021 convention, nurse leaders reimagined society with new ABOVE: FERNANDO MARTÍ, 2021. ©NNU; OPPOSITE: PATRICIA WAKIDA, 2021. ©NNU