National Nurses United

RAD_March 2011 5/5/11 11:41 AM Page 11 Rose Ann DeMoro Executive Director, National Nurses United Bargaining for America RNs are launching a Main Street contract campaign for the rest of us H with the president, or by signing dishonorad enough of hearing your families, while large companies ship jobs able partnership arrangements with Fortune overseas and make record profits. employer—or your gover500 companies or hospital corporations. That have seen appalling increases in the nor—talk about "shared If there's a lesson to be learned from the poverty rate, home foreclosures, and demand sacrifice" when all the giveattacks in state capitals this spring—the for soup kitchens. That have witnessed health aways are expected from repeal of collective bargaining rights, insurance premiums soar by 40 percent over your pension, your health defunding of education and healthcare servthe past decade, and the U.S. fall to 22nd benefits, your paycheck, or your rights? ices for the poor, privatization, slashing of among industrial nations in inequality in From Maine to California, NNU women's health programs, and deregulation health well-being for our children, our future. members are used to standing up to All while Wall Street makes record profits and of public protections—it's that the old ways managers, doctors, and insurance companies. They are used to fighting, and winning, nearly half of U.S. corporations have paid zero of doing business don't work. The mass protests in Madison, Lansing, in taxes for two years or more the past decade. for a just contract that raises the bar and Columbus, and other cities signal protects standards for their a very different approach to patients and themselves. Nurses [are] taking patient advocacy pursuing social change and One hallmark of our outside the hospital walls. They see fighting for a more just society. national nurses movement, themselves as shop stewards for their Our challenge remains to reflected in the stunning patients not only at the bedside but rewrite the received wisdom growth of the NNU, is nurses beyond... They see first hand, every day, that it was public workers or taking patient advocacy the corrosive effects of joblessness and a single mothers on Medicaid outside the hospital walls. lack of a social system that sustains their who plundered public treasThey see themselves patients' health...What we need, NNU has uries, that the supposed soluas shop stewards for their concluded, is a Main Street contract for tion for budgets bankrupted patients not only at the the American people, an agenda that will by Wall Street speculators bedside but beyond. They reverse some of the disastrous trends and bank bailouts is more see first hand, every day, the of recent decades that have seen wages, concessions by those who corrosive effects of joblessincome, and savings stagnate or fall have already given so much. ness and a lack of a social for the majority of American families, Our goal is a campaign system that sustains their while large companies ship jobs overseas that puts our legislators on patients' health.  and make record profits. notice that we expect alleAnd, increasingly, nurses giance to a Main Street agenda, have had enough of politicians not more corporate handouts; that brings Our proposed contract is as American as who are all too ready to go along with the protests to the doors of those who created Wall Street-inspired paradigm that the solu- the Bill of Rights. The basic premise is that the economic meltdown. everyone should be able to have a good tion to our still-pervasive economic crisis is RNs and NNU members have been in paying job at living wages, guaranteed further cuts in the social safety net and healthcare, equal access to quality education, the forefront of that effort for some time. major reductions in bedrock programs such Nurses have said "We brought you into the ability to retire in dignity, a safe and as Social Security and Medicare. the world, now we are going to fight for you, clean environment, and freedom from want. If we are going to change national priorifor your quality of life, for your children, for That is, if we transform national priorities. ties—and we must—it should be clear we our future." They fight not only for a What we also know is that there are cannot rely on Wall Street and those over contract for themselves, but for a contract powerful forces opposing such ideas, and no whom they hold sway. for all Americans. They demand healthcare one is going to hand working families a new What we need, NNU has concluded, is a for their patients and they fight for Medicare deal, a new society, or a new frontier. Main Street contract for the American We won't achieve these ambitious dreams for all. It's a fight we dare not lose. people, an agenda that will reverse some of by sitting behind closed doors with legislathe disastrous trends of recent decades that tors to be glad handed for cash shakedowns, have seen wages, income, and savings stagRose Ann DeMoro is executive director of National by walking in the Rose Garden for photo ops nate or fall for the majority of American Nurses United. APRIL 2011 W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . 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