Issue link: https://nnumagazine.uberflip.com/i/1521816
14 » RNs in Motion RNRN sends two teams of RNs to Florida to support residents of Port Charlotte and Englewood in the wake of the destructive, category 4 storm, Hurricane Ian. NNU applauds passage by the U.S. House of Representatives of the VA Employee Fairness Act (H.R. 1948), sponsored by Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA 39). This bill would give Dept. of Veterans Affairs nurses and other clinicians full collective bargaining rights. NNU represents more than 12,000 nurses at 23 VA hospitals in the United States. New contracts ratified by more than 21,000 RNs and nurse practitioners at 21 Kaiser Permanente facilities in Northern California, and 1,000 RNs at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center (LAMC), set the highest standards in the nation. The Northern California master contract includes an agreement to hire more than 2,000 RN and NP positions. 2023 NNU members hold a National Day of Action to demand that the hospital industry end unsafe "crisis standards of care" and increase staffing by hiring from the more than adequate pool of nurses with active RN licenses. RN actions underscore that the so-called "nursing shortage" is manufactured by the hospital industry as an excuse for their intentional short staffing. Nurses at Ascension Via Christi Saint Joseph Hospital in Wichita vote to join NNOC, making this the second hospital to unionize with NNOC in Kansas, in less than four months. RNs at Buffalo VA Medical Center (VAMC) in Buffalo, New York, hold a nurses' forum and press conference criticizing the hospital administration's grievous failure to prepare for the deadly holiday snowstorm as well as management's refusal to address the chronic staffing crisis. NNU brings the fight for safe RN staffing to Congress with introduction of The Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act, authored by Sen. Brown (D-OH) in the Senate and Rep. Schakowsky (D-IL-09) in the House. The bill establishes minimum RN-to-patient ratios for every hospital unit and provides whistle-blower protections to ensure that nurses are free to speak out for enforcement of safe staffing standards. 2,000 nurses at three Ascension hospitals — Ascension Via Christi St. Francis and Ascension Via Christi St. Joseph in Wichita, Kan., and Ascension Seton Medical Center in Austin, Texas — hold the largest nurse strikes in Texas and Kansas history to protest management's refusal to agree on contracts that invest in patient care and rectify severe understaffing at all three facilities. CNA/NNOC holds 2023 Convention in San Francisco, Calif., marking the 120th anniversary of CNA's founding and "120 Years: Our Legacy of Advocacy." More than 2,600 nurses attend, including 250 nurse leaders from 35 countries, all members of Global Nurses United, a global federation of nurses unions cofounded by NNU. Registered nurses at Ascension Saint Agnes Hospital in Baltimore, Md. vote to join NNOC, making it the first time in Baltimore history that RNs have unionized a hospital. This is the fourth Ascension-owned hospital to organize with NNOC in the short span of 13 months, bringing the total of NNOC RNs at Ascension hospitals to 2,500. In a watershed victory for labor organizing in the South, registered nurses at University Medical Center (UMC) in New Orleans, La. vote by a landslide to join NNOC. The victory makes UMC the first private-sector hospital to unionize in the state of Louisiana and marks the largest National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election in Louisiana in nearly 30 years.