National Nurses United

NewsBriefs_Oct Alt 12/30/09 2:06 PM Page 5 RNs on public policy, and particularly in winning accessible, quality healthcare for every American resident as a human right. "America needs its primary caregivers, you, to be united and unified with a strong voice," said Stewart Acuff, personal assistant to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, in a speech to the convention. "Power and strength comes from unity and an agenda to return healthcare from profit making and profit taking to caring for our people. You're forming a truly national union, and American nurses and workers need you to act like a national union with a truly national organizing team. That's how you build power and we need you to have more power." In some of its first actions, delegates elected RNs Karen Higgins of Massachusetts, Jean Ross of Minnesota, and Deborah Burger of California as the new three-memNOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2009 ber NNU Council of Presidents; Martha Kuhl, RN from California, as secretary-treasurer; and a number of board members from the three organizations as vice presidents. The NNU board also named Rose Ann DeMoro executive director of NNU. DeMoro, who has served since 1993 as executive director of CNA/NNOC, a role she will continue, is one of the most prominent voices in labor and healthcare in the United States. She has, for example, been named among the 100 most powerful people in healthcare by the industry trade publication Modern Healthcare for eight consecutive years, was cited among the "Most Influential Women in America" by MSN, and among "America's Best and Brightest" by Esquire magazine. "Just remember, when you take one of us on, you take all of us on. That's all you have to know," said DeMoro to the delegates, sumW W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G ming up the spirit of NNU in advancing and defending the interests of registered nurses and patients. In addition to forming NNU, delegates participated in a number of panels on the landscape of registered nursing today, from a talk by Linda Silas, RN and president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions about how her and other global nursing unions work, to a discussion with nursing students and also retired RNs. "So how many of us would have dreamed at this time last year that we'd be here at our founding convention of the new RN super union?" asked Deborah Burger, RN and one of the newly elected NNU presidents. "There have been many, many people that have tried to derail our train...We are moving forward on this train, and nothing in this nation is going to derail that." —staff report REGISTERED NURSE 5

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