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22 » RNs in Motion 22 » RNs in Motion Mid-contract Victory at Mission Hospital in Asheville, N.C. From the moment we started organizing to join NNOC, till today, Mission nurses have been advocating for better conditions. Even before our election was held, we won improvements in PPE and staffing. After we unionized, in September 2020, we kept the pressure on — filing ADO forms to document unsafe conditions and publicly holding HCA accountable for failing to address them. In July 2021, we won our historic first contract estab- lishing pay transparency, the hospital's first-ever wage grid for RNs, and a 17 percent wage increase over the three-year contract. After winning our first contract, we ramped up our agitation by joining with 10,000 NNOC members at other HCA hospitals to launch the "Platform for Change," demanding that HCA focus on recruitment and retention of RNs. We used multiple tactics at Mission during this campaign, including: a petition drive, a march on the boss, sticker ups, and outdoor protests nearly every month, all of which got press coverage. At one rally, we performed a skit about nurses confronting management, played by a nurse wearing a greedy pig's mask! We also held an HCA division-wide protest at the Frist Art Museum's Frist Gala in Nashville, Tenn. The Frists are the founders of HCA and its biggest shareholders. Wearing red scrubs, we greeted gala guests with flyers exposing how HCA prioritizes profits over patient care, a message we also flashed to attendees via a mobile billboard. Our campaign yielded great results! Just a little more than a year after our first contract, we won mid-contract wage adjustments that included a new improved wage grid with comprehensively higher wages at every step for all the RNs, especially for our seasoned RNs who had been paid less than newer hires. My colleagues were so excited with this victory. The nurses understood that, despite management's propa- ganda, this victory was won by our collective advocacy as union nurses. They knew this because we made this campaign highly visible throughout the hospital. The win absolutely motivated more nurses to join the union, which is very important in a "right-to-work" state. At Mission, we've learned that a strong union is an active and visible union. Whether you are just starting your union, fighting for a first contract, or you've been union- ized for a long time, you've got to always be organizing. We at Mission have seen that, wherever you are in the fight, you can hold management's feet to the fire and get what you need for your patients and your community. — Hannah Drummond, RN Emergency Department, Chief Nurse Representative, Mission Hospital, Asheville, N.C.