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, July- August-September 2022 (Volume 118/3) is published by National Nurses United, 155 Grand Avenue, Oakland, 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 general coverage and commen - tary on matters of nursing practice, community and public health, and health care policy. It is published quarterly, with combined issues in January-February- March (winter), April-May-June (spring), July-August-September (summer), and October-November-December (fall). 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 Sarah Cecile CONTRIBUTORS Rachel Berger, Lucy Diavolo, Charles Idelson, Chuleenan Svetvilas PHOTOGRAPHY Jaclyn Higgs, Tad Keyes, Choppy Oshiro wow. Looking back over this summer, we National Nurses United nurses were really on the move in a big way. The coverage in this issue of the magazine shows that nurses from California to Texas to Minnesota to Maine were scoring big wins: ratifying master contracts, successfully unionizing facilities in states—like Texas—that have his- torically been hostile to organizing, staging unprecedentedly massive work stoppages—like the Min- nesota Nurses Association's Twin Cities and Twin Ports strikes, and securing first contracts. After all we have been through these past two and a half years with Covid, and continue to endure as our employers exploit the pandemic to lock into place the crisis standards of care that we know are suboptimal, it is gratifying and gives us great hope to see nurses standing up and fighting back, together. For example, the nurses of Mission Hospital in North Carolina have made great gains since unionizing during the pandemic and are serving as major inspiration and mentors in that state's organizing revival. Nurses are so powerful. We are the most trusted profes- sion in the United States. Think about what we could win and achieve if we harnessed our collective power and chal- lenged everything that ails our patients, ails our workplaces and health care system, and ails society. And that's what NNU is all about: Helping nurses realize, take, develop, and wield their own power toward these patient advocacy goals of caring and healing. This issue also highlights another crisis: the almost com- plete disappearance of inpatient psych unit beds in this country and how our NNU behavioral health nurses are struggling to continue to provide the best care possible to their patients under these trying circumstances, with the Covid pandemic thrown on top. The stories they share are a huge wake-up call that we absolutely must prioritize mental health care as much as physical health. We know you are tired. Nurses were born tired, right? There is so much for us to fix and heal in this world. But we know that we draw great strength and energy from fellow nurses, and we think that is the key: Let's do this work together. Deborah Burger, RN | Jean Ross, RN | Zenei Triunfo-Cortez, RN National Nurses United Presidents 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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