National Nurses United

NATIONAL NURSE,™ (ISSN 2153-0386 print /ISSN 2153-0394 online) The Voice of National Nurses United, July | August 2011 Volume 107/6 is published by National Nurses United, 2000 Franklin Street, Oakland, CA 94612-2908. It provides news of organi- zational activities and reports on devel- opments of concern to all registered nurses across the nation. It also carries general coverage and commen tary on matters of nursing practice, community and public health, and healthcare policy. It is published monthly except for combined issues in January and Febru- ary, and July and August. Periodicals postage paid at Oakland, California. POSTMASTER: send address changes to National Nurse, ™ 2000 Franklin Street, Oakland, CA 94612-2908. To send a media release or announce- ment, fax (510) 663-0629. National Nurse™ is carried on the NNU website at www.nationalnursesunited.org. For permission to reprint articles, write to Editorial Office. To subscribe, send $40 ($45 foreign) to Subscription Department. Please contact us with your story ideas They can be about practice or manage- ment trends you've observed, or simply something new you've encountered in the profession. They can be about one nurse, unit, or hospital, or about the wider landscape of healthcare policy from an RN's perspective. They can be humorous, or a matter of life and death. If you're a writer and would like to contribute an article, please let us know. You can reach us at nationalnurse@nationalnursesunited.org EXECUTIVE EDITOR RoseAnn DeMoro EDITOR Lucia Hwang GRAPHIC DESIGN Jonathan Wieder COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR Charles Idelson CONTRIBUTORS Gerard Brogan, RN, Hedy Dumpel, RN, JD, Jan Rabbers, Donna Smith, David Schildmeier, Ann Kettering Sincox PHOTOGRAPHY Jaclyn Higgs, Tad Keyes, Lauren Reid summer is usually a time for rest and relaxation, but surveying our activities over the past months, it's clear that National Nurses United RNs have been busy: busy fighting for patient safety, busy defend- ing their contracts, and busy helping revive their communi- ties through our Main Street Contract campaign. We're glad to report that nurses are taking the themes of our Main Street campaign and running with it, holding protests all over the nation and linking struggles they are having at their facilities with the corporate agenda we are trying to reverse. In our news section, you can read about a powerful sit-in protest Massachusetts nurses helped stage against Hyatt hotels, about a soup kitchen Michigan nurses held on their Capitol's front law to shame their governor, about the intense battle nurses are fighting with Sutter Health over their latest contract, and about numerous can- dlelight vigils and other actions RNs have organized. Our Main Street, not Wall Street, message is really res- onating with nurses and the public. We still continue to receive many heartbreaking stories from working families going through very tough times. Often, they are from regis- tered nurses. In this issue, we profile two RNs at very differ- ent points in their career, but who share one thing in common: they both provide significant financial support for family members who otherwise would not be able to make ends meet. Reading these stories, we were also struck by another aspect they all shared: If our leaders actually ran the country in a way that provided many of the demands of our Main Street Contract, their family members would not be in such dire financial straits. Unaffordable healthcare costs, the dearth of full-time, living-wage jobs, and the absence of real pensions are among the reasons many nurs- es are supporting their relatives. Every year, we also review a pile of books that nurses should find interesting, and you'll find that story in this issue as well. The topics these books cover run the gamut, from nurse bullying to the world of health insurance public relations. Some are written from a nurse's perspective, and some from the perspective of patients. Don't miss the review of Alone Together, which discusses the incessant drive toward using technology as a replacement for human caring and poses some terrific questions about the nature of their work that all RNs should consider. Even as we do all this, we are preparing for the fall and to kick the Main Street campaign up another notch. Please join us. Go to www.MainStreetContract.org for details and come on out to your nearest protest or rally. We can't do it without you. Deborah Burger, RN | Karen Higgins, RN | Jean Ross, RN National Nurses United Council of Presidents Letter from the Council of Presidents Stay connected FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/NationalNurses FLICKR: www.flickr.com/nationalnursesunited TWITTER: @RNmagazine, @NationalNurses YOUTUBE: www.youtube.com/NationalNursesUnited TOC_Layout 1 8/16/11 5:11 PM Page 2

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