National Nurses United

RAD:1 10/17/07 9:56 PM Page 15 Rose Ann DeMoro Executive Director, CNA/NNOC The Roads We've Taken Revisiting our successes of the last two years, and looking toward the many challenges ahead. below are excerpts from Rose Ann DeMoro's planned address to the 2007 CNA/ NNOC national convention. Let me first pay tribute to Deborah Burger. We have been fortunate indeed to have had Deborah's passionate devotion to our organization, our members, and our movement as our president for the past four years. As the person who has worked most closely with Deborah, I can attest to her uncompromising commitment, her vision, her energy, and her forceful advocacy as a public voice and face for CNA/NNOC. I'd also like to recognize the president emeritus of CNA/NNOC, Kay McVay. You'll never find a more impassioned advocate for nurses, for patients, and for social change and a greater defender of our organization than Kay McVay. "STOP ARNOLD" FIGHT when we last met our convention was filled with "Stop Arnold" signs and banners.We were in the heat of a struggle for the security and soul of California. The "Terminator" unleashed—bankrolled by the biggest corporate donors in California—an agenda to demonize nurses, teachers, and firefighters and erode scores of protections for California workers and families. We had to take on a Hollywood legend and a staggering array of corporate power and wealth, starting from a point at which everyone said it could not be done. But we—and most of you in this room— proved it could be done, and we won, transforming the political face of California and earning an international reputation for CNA as a dragon slayer. There's been no greater example in recent California history, of the power and the promise of direct action in politics. We—all of you—truly made history. Two years later, it may be hard for some to OCTOBER 2007 remember what a colossal achievement that victory was. But make no mistake. The consequences have been enormous. It attracted the notice of nurses around the world who were astounded that a nurses organization could confront arguably the world's most famous celebrity politician and knock him to the ground. There's another place where our victory was noticed—corporate boardrooms across America. It's one reason why we have been so successful the past two years in achieving landmark collective bargaining and organizing agreements. It's also the reason why 29 insurance companies, 10 pharmaceutical giants, and a dozen other HMOs, nursing home chains and the California Hospital Association especially in the public sector. While our public facilities are starved for resources, hospital profits the past 20 years totaled $310 billion. With the shift from public money to private wealth, we then have to fight with public agencies to assure minimum standards for nurses and patients and often outrageous, draconian closures and cuts in services and care. Our exemplary fight in Chicago's public system is a model for the nation on how tough nurses can be, and our resolute refusal to accept this attack. PENSIONS UNDER ATTACK about five years ago, we made a collective decision to place the highest priority on winning retirement security for nurses. We don't have to live in a nation where 50 Americans die every day because they don't have health coverage, and one in six Americans with insurance lives in daily fear of bankruptcy or denial of care they have paid for. It doesn't have to be this way. poured in millions of dollars to defeat our Proposition 89 initiative last year. These corporate giants clearly saw the threat Proposition 89 posed to their stranglehold over our political system. Imagine how different our campaign for genuine healthcare reform in California would be today if Proposition 89 had passed and we did not have politicians catering to the insurance and pharmaceutical companies. DESTRUCTION OF OUR PUBLIC HEALTH SYSTEM the battles we've seen in California are a microcosm of what has been unfolding nationally over the past two years. The offensive we face runs the entire spectrum of our social, economic, political, and cultural life. We spend more on healthcare than any other country on earth. The problem is that less and less of it ends up helping patients— W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G We noted at the time the bitter irony of nurses who were retiring in poverty, with no healthcare security for themselves after devoting a lifetime of caring for others. It was no small accident that a major reason was because nursing is predominantly a women's profession. I'm proud to say today that we were phenomenally successful in winning tremendous gains in pensions and retiree health in scores of our contracts. But today those achievements and improvements are in grave danger. In a campaign led by the AFL-CIO, we were successful in stopping the Bush administration push to privatize Social Security. But the lust of the big corporations, and politicians like Arnold Schwarzenegger, to dismantle retirement security for tens of millions of American workers continues to grow. (continued on page 26) REGISTERED NURSE 15

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