Issue link: https://nnumagazine.uberflip.com/i/1477982
22 CNA/NNU 101 » The Organization LEGISLATIVE ADVOCACY A RECORD OF LEGISLATIVE ACHIEVEMENT Every year, CNA/NNU takes positions on hundreds of pieces of legislation affecting RNs, their workplace, and patients. The Government Relations department consists of regulatory policy specialists and lobbyists. A mem- ber-composed Legislative/Regulatory Committee guides the work of the department. Direct-care RNs want a strong advocate who will fight for patients and nurses in the legislative arena and win. As any direct-care RN knows, safe staffing — legally enforced through minimum, specific RN-to-patient ratios — is the gold standard for RNs and patient safety. The model, the landmark CNA/NNU-authored safe staffing law that has been in effect in all California hospitals since 2004, has generated national legislation which includes hospital-wide RN ratios, legal recognition for RN patient advocacy rights, whistle-blower protections, and safe patient handling standards. MEDICARE FOR ALL The union has played a leading role in advocating for Medicare for All, a single-payer health care system that would guarantee safe, therapeutic care to everyone with a single standard of care. Due to the union's leadership, a growing mass movement of nurses and our allies has put Medicare for All on the Congressional agenda. Our federal legislation, the Medicare for All Act, now has the support of the majority of the Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives and was introduced in the U.S. Senate in May 2022. The campaign for guaranteed health care for all also continues at the state level in several key states. LABOR RIGHTS National Nurses United fights for the rights of nurses, and indeed all workers, to organize unions and bargain collectively, free from management interference and ret- ribution. This is why the union is a strong advocate of the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would take important steps toward restoring this vital right to all workers in the United States. This bill passed the U.S. House of Representatives on March 9, 2021 and is awaiting action in the Senate. NNU is also the leader in fighting for passage of the Veterans Administration Employee Fairness Act, which would grant full collective bargaining rights to RNs and other clinicians in V.A. facilities across the country. OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY Because of NNU's unrelenting advocacy, we were able to achieve a landmark federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Covid-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) for health care workers in June 2021 to protect nurses and other health care workers during the pandemic. The standard requires mandatory practices governing the provision of PPE and safety protocols for all health care workplaces during the pan- demic. Ongoing nurse advocacy at the facility level has succeeded in pressuring hospital employers to adhere to the ETS and adopt practices necessary for saving the lives of nurses and our patients. CNA and NNU have also been prominent national leaders in demanding protections for nurses and other health care workers from workplace violence. The union won land- mark legislation in California in 2014 to require hospital employers to adopt workplace violence prevention plans. That bill, now a California statute, served as the basis of the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives on April 16, 2021. The bill requires OSHA to issue an interim occupational safety and health standard that will require employers in the health care and social service sectors to take actions to protect workers and other personnel from workplace violence. CNA/NNU HEALTH AND SAFETY PROTECTIONS Whether we are talking about Covid-19, other infectious diseases, back injuries, workplace violence, or other workplace safety issues nurses face every day, CNA/NNU leads the way in winning protections for nurses. CNA/NNU has: X Won the first national, enforceable standard on Covid-19 to protect health care workers and their patients, including the first national mandate for respiratory protection and other personal protective equipment for health care workers caring for Covid- 19 patients X Advanced the campaign for a national, enforceable workplace violence prevention standard to protect health care and social service workers X Stopped dangerous crisis standards employing unproven "decontamination" systems to reuse single- use N95 respirators during the Covid-19 pandemic X Won breakthrough legislation in 2014 to create landmark workplace violence regulations in health care settings in California X Won safe patient handling regulations to prevent back injuries to California nurses X Advanced work towards a surgical plume standard in California The Organization »