National Nurses United

absurdity of the ideas of African Americans celebrating the Fourth of July during the era of slavery, from Susan B. Anthony when she addressed the court that found her guilty of attempting to vote at a time when women were not allowed to do so, and from young women workers, from the cloth mills to slaughterhouses, who stood up and walked out for their labor rights. "We started talking union. The thing that precipitated it is that on the floor below they used to make hotdogs and one of the women, in putting the meat into the chopper, got her fingers caught. There were no safety guards. Her fingers got into the hotdogs and they were chopped off. It was just horrible," said actress Gaby Hoffmann as Vicky Starr, a young woman working at and trying to unionize the Chicago stockyards in the 1930s. The event received extensive coverage by both the mainstream and progressive media organizations, and trended all weekend on social media platforms such as Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram. "That means that people are listening," said RoseAnn DeMoro. The summit also enjoyed its own app, which allowed users to track session details, find and message other attendees, share feedback, photos, and ideas, and ultimately build community with thousands of other attendees. In just under two days, participants allied with one another, debated one another, challenged and stimulated one another, and inspired one another to keep fighting for the vision of social, racial, and economic justice that they, and many Americans, share. "I know there's been a lot of questions about where we go from here and what we do," said DeMoro during the closing plenary. "That's our collective decision. No one came in here with a big over- all plan. We're going to fight for our issues. Nobody's giving up on our issues. I think this is the most beautiful weekend maybe of my life in terms of the activists that I've met—all of you. You've been so genuine and so smart. I see a whole new world." RNs Focus on Health and Safety in 2016 Staff Nurse Assembly National Nurses United registered nurses geared up for the Peo- ple's Summit by holding their annual Staff Nurse Assembly in Chicago just days before the Summit began. RNs focused on how to best fulfill their role as patient advocates within the ever- changing landscape of nursing in corporate healthcare. RNs from across the country converged to hear from fellow nurs- es about their challenges, victories, and efforts to unionize their workplaces in order to win safe work environments for their patients and themselves. A historical perspective on the fight to form unions was presented that included the bitter and often deadly struggles of workers to win decent conditions for themselves and their families. One of the centerpieces of the 2016 assembly was a presenta- tion and discussion by Bonnie Castillo, RN and NNU's Health and Safety Director, in which she announced the launch of NNU's Health and Safety Division. This Division monitors, researches, and lobbies for various initiatives to ensure the occupational safety of RNs with- in the regulatory, legislative, and collective bargaining arenas. Castillo also led a panel of nurse leaders who discussed threats RNs face in their practice, such as workplace violence; infectious disease control and prevention; health threats arising from climate change; safe staffing; patient handling; and the unpreparedness of American hospitals. "If patients are truly to be given optimum care, nurses must be safe and secure in their practice," said Castillo. RNs also attended continuing education courses focused on a deeper, big-picture understanding of how health is not only shaped by an individual's factors, but also social and even global factors. They learned how the United States' failure to implement a single- payer, Medicare-for-all national health system has been a major factor in our country's poor health indicators in global comparison, as well as our rising acuities as people fail to seek needed health- care in the face of high insurance deductibles and low coverages. RNs were also informed about how corporate healthcare schemes, such as the use of technology to mediate RN-patient interactions, ultimately interfere with the role of the registered nurse to advocate for their patients. RNs attended a class about the crushing impact of student debt and other courses exposed the fossil fuel industry's disproportionate impact on working poor communities. M A R C H | A P R I L 2 0 1 6 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 N A T I O N A L N U R S E 19 From immediate left clockwise across all pages: Activist Frances Fox Piven provides social theory framing for this moment in history; actors and musicians performed "The People Speak"; Brian Jones gives dramatic reading as abolitionist Frederick Douglass; some of the nation's most progressive elected officials shared their perspective on the movement; artists Jesus Barraza and Melanie Cervantes made posters on site for attendees to take home.

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