National Nurses United

J A N U A R Y | F E B R U A R Y | M A R C H 2 0 2 6 W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G N A T I O N A L N U R S E 17 P eople sometimes ask why nurses get involved in poli- tics, and why they can't just "stay in their lane." RNs speak out everywhere their voices can make a difference because decisions happening at the highest levels of political power can harm and even kill people in our communities. In 2025, the Trump administration and Republicans' budget bill, H.R. 1, slashed $1 trillion from Medicaid and Medicare, direct- ing those funds to billionaire tax cuts and heavily militarizing ICE. While the CEOs who run our hospitals can now more easily buy a second vacation home, and a massive influx of ICE agents have flooded into our neighbor- hoods, bringing chaos and terror, patients who rely on Medicaid and Medicare funds to stay alive are suffering. Hospitals that rely on these funds to stay functional and open are now vulnerable to care cuts or closure. And nurses, who have a long, proud history of getting "political" to protect public health, will not stay silent. As we launch into 2026 and assess the state of our country, we can see that our health care, our workplaces, and our communities are in acute distress. Our democracy's vital signs are weak, as the billionaires bankrolling our federal govern- ment try to crush working people, so that we can't hold them accountable. But union nurses are trained for moments like this. When the alarms are blaring, and lives are at stake, RNs have tools to assess the situation and respond appropriately—with urgency. That's why we are so proud to see, only a few months into 2026, how fiercely nurses are fighting back. The most trusted profession has risen up to protect our communities from H.R. 1- fueled ICE terror. When Alex Pretti—a VA nurse; a neighbor to our Minnesota colleagues; and a union brother from the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE)—was shot and killed by federal agents, NNU nurses didn't just grieve. We rose up. In addition to Minnesota Nurses Association RNs waging the fight back at ground zero, nurses across the coun- try organized an entire week of vigils to not only honor and seek justice for Pretti and all those killed by ICE, but also to demand that Congress vote no on any spending package that includes funding for ICE and other immigration enforcement agencies. Our movement successfully pressured members of Congress to hold the line and vote down long-term funding proposals for immigration enforcement. While Congress debates next steps on funding and accounta- bility for ICE and border patrol agents, nurses will continue to call for a complete reversal of the Medicare and Medicaid cuts in H.R. 1 and build support on the only demand that will keep our communities safe: Abolish ICE. Union nurses know that healing injustice is sometimes a long journey. So we hit the road in 2026 with our Red Alert bus tour, to draw attention to the 400 community hospitals that National Nurses United has identified as vulnerable to service cuts or closure, due to H.R. 1 cuts. You can learn more about the tour on page 22 in this issue. By the time you read this, RNs across the country will have also risen up in a national day of action on Feb. 19 to declare ICE an urgent public health threat and to demand that hospitals either side with nurses to protect patients or side with the fascist regime and face our wrath. For courage and strength, we can also look to the militant RNs in the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA). On Jan. 12, nearly 15,000 New York City private-sector nurses struck for fair contracts that include strong patient care protections. In a New York Times op-ed, Sheryl Ostroff, a striking emergency department RN from Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital, connected their fight back to the health care cuts in H.R. 1. "With cuts to Medicaid, patients … delay visits to routine screenings and pediatri- cians, then come to us when their health has become an emergency," said Ostroff. "The emergency department has become the safety net for all of [the] failures within the health care system. But this system is break- ing down. We need the resources to continue to uphold our nursing oath." We couldn't be more proud that striking NYSNA nurses stood in unbreakable soli- darity for more than a month, until nearly 15,000 RNs at Mount Sinai, Montefiore, and NewYork-Presbyterian won strong, new contracts to protect their patients. NYSNA RNs are a critical reminder of how union nurses can use bargaining power to fight back against billionaire-backed attacks on public health. Nurses don't wait for politicians to save us. We organize across hospitals—as the RNs at San Francisco's Sutter Health Cali- fornia Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) Davies and Community Hospital of Monterey Peninsula (CHOMP), in Monterey, Calif. did when they recently joined the California Nurses Association. And we organize across units, sectors, and communities, leading the way toward our vision of a more caring and compassionate society, with Medicare for All, and the free- dom to live a safe and healthy life. The major roadblock on our path to this healthy future is not immigrants. It's not nurses advocating for public health. It's a billion- aire class that profits from understaffing, burnout, and terror, and a political estab- lishment willing to use authoritarian power to protect profit. Nursing ethics tell us something simple and powerful: Silence in the face of harm is not neutrality; it's abandonment. Neutrality is not a nursing value. Advocacy is. Puneet Maharaj is executive director of National Nurses United. Puneet Maharaj Executive Director, National Nurses United Raising Our Voices Silence in the face of harm is not neutrality. That's why RNs get political for our patients.

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