National Nurses United

Contract_4 pg 6/2/11 3:57 PM Page 12 Tell Us Where it Hurts A t work, registered nurses watch over their patients. At home, they are often the main caretakers and even sole breadwinners of their extended families, whether that means caring for aging parents or older siblings, helping out their adult children with bills, or babysitting their grandchildren on the days they're not at work. In their communities, nurses are usually the ones organizing the church food drive or coordinating the school soccer team fundraiser. So when we consider how the latest recession has forever changed the lives of American families, we need look no further than our own nurses, patients, and networks to get a sense of how pervasive the problems of unemployment, lack of healthcare, home foreclosures, and inability to retire really are. How many of us have an adult child, and maybe his or her whole family, living with us? How many of us have a spouse out of work? How many of us are worried sick for our children and grandchildren going without health insurance? For so long in this country, we have been told that if you're not already a retired millionaire, or your American dream is more like a nightmare of medical bills and debt collectors, that "It's your own fault." Yet, when we look around, we see hardworking people who played by the rules losing their life's savings, losing their homes, losing their health. Many of us are don't believe the message we hear in the media, that working people are to blame for these troubles; the problem is systemic and the root cause is a huge imbalance of wealth and power in favor of corporations, Wall Street, and the super rich at the expense of regular people like you and me. This is why National Nurses United is leading nurses on a campaign to win a Main Street Contract for everyone. The demands are simple. Americans need living wage jobs; equal access to a quality, public education; healthcare for all; a secure retirement; good 12 N AT I O N A L N U R S E housing and protection from hunger; a healthy environment; the right to unionize and bargain for better working conditions; a tax system where the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share; and to be able to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. To win this, nurses need to step up. Not just to fight for this contract by taking to the streets and lobbying legislators (that will come soon enough), but to simply speak up about how bad things have gotten for our own households, our patients, and our neighbors. The first step toward healing the country is diagnosing the real illness. Many of us nurses know working people are not to blame for our current economic crisis, and we need to say so. Please share your stories. Here are a handful to get you thinking. We know you'll find they hit closer to home than you ever expected. They did for us. Playing the Waiting Game As part of her job, Cokie Giles, an endoscopy RN in Maine, helps coordinate a Centers for Disease Control program that provides free colonoscopies to people who can't afford them. "I hear really, really sad stories," said Giles. "They either have no insurance or really high, high deductibles. They're already paying $500 a month and their deductible is $10,000. And colonoscopies are $2,000 to $3,000. In this market, their husbands are without work. Their kids are living with them. You've got five people living on $23,000. I don't know how they do it. So there's stuff they're leaving for later that could maybe kill them in the end." 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 M AY 2 0 1 1 FOOD BANK: CHIP SOMODEVILLA | GETTY IMAGES; PILL BOTTLE: HAUNTEDTOYS | DREAMSTIME.COM To win a better life for all Americans, we nurses need to start talking about what's happening in our homes, in our workplace, and in our neighborhoods.

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