Issue link: https://nnumagazine.uberflip.com/i/1521816
26 » RNs in Motion Social Advocacy PATIENT ADVOCACY— OUR GUIDING PRINCIPLE Fighting Hospital Closures Over the past decade, hospital corporations have continued to consolidate facilities and services in their pursuit of maximizing profits, resulting in either hospital closures or major service cuts in some communities where that hospital is the only one for miles around. Closures have hit rural areas particularly hard but are happening in major urban centers as well. NNOC nurses have been instrumental in fighting these closures and trying to preserve critical services for their communities. In Maine, nurses protested the closure of a labor and delivery unit at Calais Regional Hospital and were suc- cessful in forcing out a hospital management company, Quorum, that was mismanaging their facility. In Ohio at Affinity Medical Center and in Washington, D.C. at Providence Hospital, nurses teamed up with their communities to protest and delay the closures of those facilities. In California, nurses, through organizing with local health care and community activists as well as elected officials, were able to help save St. Luke's Hospital and San Leandro Hospital in Northern California from closure and, most recently in Southern California, push decision makers to find new operators for Community Medical Center Long Beach to keep that critical facility open. In Berkeley, Sutter Health nurses have been waging a years-long campaign to keep Alta Bates Hospital open. This advocacy by CNA/NNOC nurses is key to providing health care access for patients in communities across the country. Standing Up for RN and Patient Rights — the Kentucky River Decision A misguided 2006 National Labor Relations Board ruling — the "Kentucky River" decision — that employers could exploit to try to group registered nurses, partic- ularly charge nurses, into the category of supervisor mobilized tens of thousands of CNA/NNOC nurses, labor activists, and community members to protest and take all necessary action, up to and including striking, to protect their rights to a union. Nurses at many facilities were successful in negotiating, as part of their contracts, commitments by employers to not invoke the decision — with the Kaiser Permanente master contract covering 21,000 RNs among the most significant of these. DEFENDING THE PUBLIC'S HEALTH Often, it is necessary to take our advocacy beyond the walls of the facilities in which we work. Our members have fought to preserve vital health care services in our communities, fighting hospital closures and cutbacks in care. We have rallied to keep our rights as union members and the protections that allow us to advocate for our patients, and we have campaigned for safe staffing and health care reform in the halls of our legislatures. Defending Public Health Care in Cook County, Illinois Over the years, RNs have waged vigorous fights to protect patients against budget cuts that would have decimated one of the nation's premier, comprehensive public health care systems. The cuts threatened many of the Cook County Health and Hospitals System's clinics, cutting off services for many pregnant women, children, and the elderly. With the support of fellow medical workers, religious leaders, and the community, RNs braved 15-degree weather to protest, leading mass demonstrations and packing public hearings. As a result, RNs managed to mitigate the clinic cutbacks and, in some cases, even reopen or expand sites. Most recently, when the system proposed closing the pediatrics unit at its main hospital, Stroger, nurses allied with the commu- nity — effectively keeping the only safety net pediatrics unit serving many of Cook County's low-income and immigrant children of color. Standing Up for Workers' Rights and Unity Nurses know that their power to advocate for patients comes from having a strong union to protect them when they speak up and challenge management. When the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 struck a huge blow to labor unions and worker solidarity by ruling in Janus v. AFSCME that public-sector workers could shirk their union obligations by refusing to be members and pay dues, NNOC nurses across the country staged major public protests. Most importantly, nurses educated coworkers and organized themselves to maintain high membership numbers and the unity needed to continue bargaining for strong contracts and advocating for patients.