Issue link: https://nnumagazine.uberflip.com/i/1520619
22 NNOC 101 » The Organization LEGISLATIVE ADVOCACY A RECORD OF LEGISLATIVE ACHIEVEMENT Every year, NNOC and our national organization, National Nurses United (NNU), take positions on state and federal legislation affecting RNs, their workplaces, and patients. The Government Relations department consists of regula- tory policy specialists and lobbyists. A member-composed Legislative/Regulatory committee and the union's elected Executive Council guides the work of the department. SAFE STAFFING As any direct-care RN knows, safe staffing ratios laws are the gold standard for RNs and patient safety. The model, the landmark CNA-authored safe staffing law that has been in effect in all California hospitals since 2004, has inspired similar bills at the federal and state level. At the federal level, the Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act, which includes hospital-wide mandatory minimum RN staffing ratios, legal recognition for RN patient advocacy rights, and whistle-blower protections, continues to gain support in Congress. 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. The campaign for guaranteed health care for all also continues at the state level in several key states. LABOR RIGHTS National Nurses Organizing Committee and National Nurses United fight for the rights of nurses, and indeed all workers, to organize unions and bargain collectively, free from management interference and retribution. This is why the unions are 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. NNOC and NNU are also leaders in fighting for passage of the Veterans Administration Employee Fairness Act, which would grant full collective bargaining rights to RNs and other clinicians in VA facilities across the country. OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY Because of NNOC and 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 pandemic. 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. NNOC and NNU have also been prominent national leaders in demanding protections for nurses and other health care workers from workplace violence. The union won landmark legislation in California in 2014 to require hospital employers to adopt workplace violence preven- tion plans. That bill, now a California statute, served as the basis of the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act. 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. The bill was reintroduced in the House and the Senate on April 18, 2023. The Organization »