Issue link: https://nnumagazine.uberflip.com/i/1521816
28 » RNs in Motion Social Advocacy PATIENT ADVOCACY— OUR GUIDING PRINCIPLE A RECORD OF LEGISLATIVE ACHIEVEMENT Every year, NNOC and our national union, National Nurses United, take positions on state and federal legislation affecting RNs, their workplaces, and patients. The Government Relations department consists of regulatory policy specialists and lobbyists. A member-composed Legislative/Regulatory committee and the union's elected Executive Council guides the work of the department. As NNU continues to fight for the gold standard for RN and patient safety, hospital-wide mandatory minimum RN staffing ratios in federal and statewide legislation, we energetically advocate on other fronts including labor rights and occupational health and safety. Labor Rights National Nurses United fights 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 union is 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. This bill passed the U.S. House of Representatives on March 9, 2021, and was reintroduced in the House in March 2023. NNU represents more than 12,000 nurses at 23 VA hospitals in the United States and is a leader in fighting for passage of the VA Employee Fairness Act. This bill was passed on Dec. 15, 2022, by the U.S. House of Representatives and would give Dept. of Veterans Affairs nurses and other clinicians full collective bargaining rights. We plan to reintroduce this bill and work to pass through both houses of Congress. OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY Protection from Infectious Disease Because of 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 Covid-19 pandemic. The standard requires mandatory practices governing the provision of PPE and safety protocols for all health care workplaces during the pandemic. We continue to advocate for a permanent standard. Ongoing nurse advocacy at the facility level has suc- ceeded in pressuring hospital employers to adhere to the ETS and adopt practices necessary for saving the lives of nurses and our patients. Holding Employers Accountable for Workplace Violence Prevention NNOC and NNU have also been prominent national leaders in demanding protections for nurses and other health care workers against 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, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives on April 16, 2021. 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 Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives in April 2023.