National Nurses United

an RN from Antelope Valley Medical Center in Southern California who described a recent upsetting episode where he worked charge on an extremely short-staffed telemetry-medical-surgical floor. Because the nurses were unionized, they together, as a unit, filled out and signed an assignment despite objection (ADO) form, and he called state regulators to report the unsafe conditions. Without unions, cor- porations would put "profits before patient safety, before nurse licen- sure, before our community, family, and friends," he added. Facing this grim picture, these chief nurse reps next learned practical, step-by-step measures they could take to strengthen rela- tionships, get more organized, and grow the power of the nurses. These included evaluating the involvement and support of their facilities' RN members; going on the offensive instead of always playing defense; broadening and deepening nurses' political under- standing; recruiting new, young leaders; and building influence by allying with community groups also fighting for social, economic, environmental, and racial justice. "You can't get it done by yourself," said Irma Westmoreland, RN and chair of the Veterans Affairs nurses within CNA/NNOC. "You can't be an island, you can't be a silo. You have to reach out to part- ners, others unions, other community groups." Other nurses agreed on the important of strength in numbers. "We need a united force," said Martese Chism, an RN from Stroger Hospital in Chicago's Cook County Health and Hospitals System. "We need help from our allies to get our message out to the different communities." The nurses left exhausted, but ready. "We got us all here together to learn how to fight back," said Cokie Giles, an RN from Eastern Maine Medical Center and a CNA/NNOC copresident. "We're already doing it, but we're going to need to amp it up and teach other people how to do it." J A N U A R Y | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 7 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 15 "We got us all here together to learn how to fight back. We're already doing it, but we're going to need to amp it up and teach other people how to do it." —cokie giles, rn, cna/nnoc copresident

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