National Nurses United

J U LY | A U G U S T | S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 2 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 A T I O N A L N U R S E 15 Y ou never forget the thrill, accomplishment, and hope you feel when you and your colleagues first win a union at your workplace. I know because I've experienced it myself! I was a nurse leader in the organiz- ing committee that unionized my small Northern California hospital more than 25 years ago. My hospital was part of a multi- hospital, five-campus campaign that won union representation for 1,600 Catholic Healthcare West nurses and kickstarted large-scale organizing by the California Nurses Association in the Sacramento region and expanded to Southern California. Today, I am beyond proud to say that nurses in Florida are knowing what it feels like to unionize. Nurses in North Carolina and Maine are, too. Nurses in California, Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado. And nurses in Texas! These are all places where National Nurses United (NNU) and its affiliates have been winning recent elections, even during this Covid-19 pandemic. The hard but criti- cal work of organizing the unorganized is a core tenet of our organizations: We are building a national movement of class- conscious nurses to advocate for our profession, our patients, and health care and social justice for our wider communities. Constantly educating and convincing nurses to join our ranks is integral to growing our movement and to its success! For one of the largest NNU affiliates, California Nurses Association and National Nurses Organizing Committee, direct-care nurses who led the rebirth of that union in the early 1990s enthusiastically and wisely made the decision to invest in organizing. The news headlines are all buzzing about this new "trend" of unionizing, but we nurses have been steadfastly doing this work for almost 30 years. I myself was one of the nurses unionized through that 1990s wave. We haven't won every attempt, but we have certainly won an awful lot of them. Some of these wins have been big, not just in terms of numbers, but in significance. Last year's union election victory by nurses at Maine Medical Center meant that almost 2,000 RNs would now have representation while working at the state's largest hospital facility. Every organizing win is significant. In September 2021, thousands of nurses with the University of Michigan voted to stay affiliated with the Michigan Nurses Associ- ation, and dozens of nurses with the Mayo Health Clinic in Lake City did the same with Minnesota Nurses Association in October 2022. In July 2021, Hennepin Health forensic nurses voted to join the Minnesota Nurses Association. And Michi- gan Nurses Association over the past couple of years has been successful in organizing hundreds of techs, nurses, and other health care workers at UP Health System Marquette, Sparrow Home Health, and UP Health System Bell. Many of these successful elections are also happening in so-called "red" states with anti-union "right-to-work" laws— places where observers and even people within the labor movement have said it is "impossible" to unionize. When nearly 1,500 nurses at Mission Hospital in North Carolina voted the year before that to go union, it represented the largest election win at a hospital in the state since 1975 and the largest overall union victory in the South in 12 years. (Check out our story on page 16 for more details on Mission nurses' labor influence in the region.) When nurses at Longmont United Hospital in Colorado triumphed in their union election this spring, they were the first nurses at a private-sector hospital in the state to organize. And when some 800 nurses at Ascension Seton Medical Center in Austin, Texas voted by a landslide in September to form a union, they represented the largest private-sector hospital in Texas thus far to do so. "This is huge. I can't believe I'm getting emotional, but this is huge," said one of the Austin nurses immediately after learning about their overwhelming victory. "We've been through so much and we've been fight- ing for so long. And finally we've gotten somewhere! And it's bigger than we ever could have imagined." And where NNU unions excel is trans- lating those unionization victories into first contracts. Sadly, many workers who win their elections do not progress beyond those initial votes—anywhere from 20-30 percent of bargaining units do not successfully negotiate a first contract. Our nurses have a strong record in this regard; our nurses at Coral Gables Hospital in South Florida reached a first contract in less than three months from the time of their election! Over the past year, we nurses have been ecstatic to see the resurgence of organizing in the United States. Whether it's Amazon warehouse workers, Starbucks baristas, or retail salespeople at REI and Apple stores, it's exciting to see workers coming together to have a say in how to improve their liveli- hoods and the terms and conditions under which they labor. It's exciting to see workers embarking on the journey and path that we nurses have been tirelessly forging over these past 30 years. Just as we registered nurses serve as respected resources for health care and advice in our communities, we hope to serve as an inspiration and practical resource for this spirited new wave of organizing. Bonnie Castillo, RN is executive director of National Nurses United. Bonnie Castillo, RN Executive Director, National Nurses United Getting Organized Nurses are heartened that the rest of the country's workers have started what we've been steadily doing the past three decades: going union

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