National Nurses United

RoseAnn DeMoro Executive Director, National Nurses United N No Longer A Dream National Nurses United joins with international nurses in united front against global attacks on nursing, patients, public health urses of the world, unite! It's not just a slogan, no longer a dream, but taking a big step closer to fruition. In late June, 1,000 members of National Nurses United from 25 U.S. states were on hand for an assembly in San Francisco to discuss the enormous challenges facing nurses in the struggle to protect patient advocacy, RN workplace and economic standards, and how to confront the daunting erosion of social justice, labor, and democratic rights in the United States. On hand with us were nurse and healthcare worker union leaders from 13 other nations, representing, well, the entire world: Asia, Australia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America, and Central America. In addition to speaking to the assembly on their efforts to protect health services and the role of nurses as harbingers of change, our global guests joined our spectacular march across the Golden Gate Bridge highlighting the fight against the harmful effects of austerity and the Keystone XL Pipeline and climate change. Just as the brutal, man-made effects of climate change and austerity measures are rapidly erasing national borders, we face common international struggles that require a response that crosses lines on the maps as well. To promote our unity, we need to work together, a point made by one leader after another in an inspiring meeting that concluded with the founding of the first truly international coalescence of nurses unions: Global Nurses United. Whether speaking Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Tagalog, French, or English, there was a common language in the crises described from one country to the next: privatization of public healthcare accompanied by huge cuts in health services, poverty, and enormous disparity of wealth, and attacks on unions, collective bargaining, and the rights of workers to strike, to name but a few. JUNE 2013 "There is a deep solidarity in all of these countries" among those holding the reigns of economic and political power, noted Monica Dicon of Argentina's Federación Sindical de Profesionales de la Salud. "Unless we have even more solidarity among ourselves, we are never going to reach a point where we have societies that honor such basic rights as health, education, and a dignified life." "We have been surprised by the fact that the most developed countries of the world are experiencing the same problems as the poor countries," said Maria Yanet Almendarez of Honduras' Asociation Nacional de Enfermeras/os Auxiliares. Indeed. As we've seen corporate-financed attacks on public sector workers and union rights across the United States, leaders from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Ireland, Israel, and the Philippines cite similar assaults. "What they're planning for our health systems and unions is diabolical," said Judith Kiejda of the New South Wales Nurses and Midwives Association, words echoed in one form or another by the leaders from South Korea or the Dominican Republic or the United States. The advocates of austerity and titans of globalization are actualizing an agenda and putting it into effect worldwide. Attacks on nurses, their ability to act on behalf of patients, and their own role are one consequence. "Our profession is undervalued by government and society. Fewer young people are going into nursing. Our profession itself is in intensive care," said Julio Cesar Garcia of the Dominican Republic. But nurses know how to fight, for their patients, for their families, for their coworkers, for their communities, for the people of their countries as a whole, as we were reminded again and again. In Guatemala, we were told, it is the 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 nurses and healthcare workers leading the fight for better conditions for everyone, we were told. In Brazil, nurses and healthcare workers have been in the forefront of the battle against cuts in public services and political corruption. The Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa has emphasized that the "trade unions should take on the struggles of the community, we can't just deal with labor issues," noted Thembeka Gwagwa. Action, in fact, was a common theme for all. Virtually everyone had a story of leading strikes, rallies, marches or other protests, whether to defend nurses' living standards, the right of public workers to strike, or broader austerity assaults. To that end, the leaders agreed to set actions across the world in September, coinciding with the next convening of the UN General Assembly, as a first step for GNU. We can pull together or we will be pulled apart. We can be a force to challenge the globalization and neo-liberal agenda that has been so devastating in most of our countries, those practitioners of greed to whom the public sector and public services are a drain on society because they get in the way of their profits. And we know if the nurses of the world truly get together, they can be an unstoppable force. Personally, it was uplifting to my soul and humbling to be a part of a national organization and leaders who have the vision to promote and understand the significance of such international solidarity. We stood in unity with those who give their lives for their people, who see the promise of nurses and healthcare workers of the world working for change, and who are committed to helping this moment and opportunity take form and move forward. RoseAnn DeMoro is executive director of National Nurses United. N AT I O N A L N U R S E 11

• Cover