National Nurses United

nurses' protection of their patients and their practice, as well as inspire them to action. This year, highlights from the assembly included a 1,000-plus nurse rally and march across the Golden Gate Bridge to protest the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline as a major health and environmental hazard; presentations about the health effects of global climate change; testimony by nurse representatives from 14 nations about the struggles by RNs in their countries to win safe staffing levels and fight massive government cuts to their health budgets (often called "austerity measures"); formation of a new vaulting at least 6 degrees Celsius (about 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100, and maybe more. We will experience ever-increasing numbers of extreme weather events, whether they are droughts, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, or extreme heat. LaTasha Wilson-Hall, an RN who works and lives in the "smog capital of the United States," San Bernardino County, connected the dirty environment to the many respiratory problems that she sees and treats every day, not only among her patients but her children and their classmates. "I have watched people gasp to breathe," said Wilson-Hall. "I will never forget the first time I saw a patient having an asthma attack. She "What you should really be worried about is the profession of nursing. Because they are redefining that, and they are redefining what nursing care is, and they are redefining what health is." group of international nurses unions to coordinate our work on these global issues; special appearances by noted political figures like California Gov. Jerry Brown; and numerous educational programs. "People often feel like all we have time to deal with is taking care of our families and our patients, and we don't want to deal with everything else," said Ashley Forsberg, a Michigan RN who discussed the importance of overcoming apathy among her coworkers and educating them about the bigger picture of nursing and health. "But what I learned is that if we don't deal with everything else, nothing is going to change." The conference kicked off with a panel about the collective bargaining fights, challenges, and wins NNU nurses have been waging across the United States. This year, nurses from about 25 states attended. The common theme was that employers are using the bad economy and changes brought about by the Affordable Care Act as excuses to demand extreme concessions from their nursing workforces and even fundamentally alter the practice of nursing. NNU Executive Director RoseAnn DeMoro laid out the battle quite plainly for RNs. "I know a lot of you are feeling insecure about your wages and feeling insecure about your retirement," said DeMoro. "But what you should really be worried about is the profession of nursing. Because they are redefining that, and they are redefining what nursing care is, and they are redefining what health is." Next, a panel of RNs and environmental experts discussed how climate change is harming health and, if we do not immediately and dramatically limit our burning of fossil fuels, the human species may well go extinct. Carbon dioxide levels in the air have recently reached 400 parts per million, a tipping point from which many scientists say we may never recover. Average temperatures will continue to rise, JUNE 2013 couldn't even take a breath to finish a complete sentence. She reminded me of a goldfish taken out of its bowl." To control global climate change, we need to control emissions. And to control emissions, we need to control energy, which means we need to control the energy companies, argued Lara Skinner and Sean Sweeney, both with the Cornell Global Labor Institute. "If we don't control [emissions], we are cooked, literally," said Sweeney. Instead of investing in alternate means of clean, renewable energy generation, such as solar and wind, the world's energy corporations are pursuing what Skinner called an "extreme energy agenda," meaning that they are using extreme methods of extracting fuels from the earth, such as gas fracking and refinement of tar sands oil. Currently, many environmentalists and energy reformists are opposing construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, a conduit that would bring tar sands "oil" from Alberta, Canada, down to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico for processing to export to markets like China. Not a traditional crude oil, tar sands oil is more like a thick sludge that must be mixed with hazardous chemicals to get it to flow in the pipeline and uses even more chemicals to refine. An Environmental Working Group report released June 20 identified lead, benzene, tuolene, ethylbenzene, chromium, and other toxic compounds in a tar sands sample collected from the March spill of a similar Exxon pipeline in Arkansas. NNU nurses and other environmentalists are against the Keystone XL pipeline not only for the risk any spills or breaks in the line could pose to neighboring communities, but also because it will contribute to fossil fuel emissions. President Obama must approve the pipeline for the project to move forward, and many are watching his decision as a test of whether he is serious about pursuing clean sources of energy. To educate the public, fellow nurses, and put public pressure on the administration to reject Keystone XL, NNU nurses next acted on what they learned by staging a lively rally and march across San Francisco's iconic Golden Gate Bridge. "I don't want to look in the eyes of my patient and tell her I didn't do everything in my power to keep her safe and healthy, to keep her community safe and healthy, to keep the planet safe and healthy," said Deborah Burger, RN and a member of the NNU Council of Presidents, at the rally before nurses, dressed in bright red scrubs, streamed across the bridge. The next day, nurses regrouped to hear a number of international RN delegates discuss how "austerity measures," which simply means severe government cuts to social programs like public health, publicsector wages, and state pensions, have translated into horrendous understaffing at their workplaces and how nurses are organizing to fight back. "Nobody has to say austerity doesn't work, because they 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 N AT I O N A L N U R S E 13

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