National Nurses United

At CNA, says RoseAnn, she wanted to "redefine the promise of the [nursing] profession," and promote "the advancement of the working class and women in particular." Working with energized staff nurse activists and leaders, now feeling supported and assisted by RoseAnn, who had become the collective bargaining director, and the staff she brought on board, the nurses were finally ready to take control of CNA. The desperate old guard tried to hold back the tide by firing RoseAnn and 12 of her newly hired staff, and suspended four officers of the collective bargaining leadership board five days before Christ- mas, 1992. But the nurses, with guidance from RoseAnn, had learned how to mobilize and organize. Through a massive uprising, along with cre- ative legal strategy, they overturned the firings and suspensions, and parlayed it into a board election victory, finally winning staff nurse control of CNA for the first time in its then 90-year history. "CNA's revolution would never have happened without RoseAnn," says former CNA and NNU field director Mike Griffing. "Her courage, her intelligence, her audacity—and she has plenty of that—her relentlessness, and most important of all, her vision." RoseAnn and the now-staff nurse-majority on the CNA board of directors quickly moved to consolidate the changes implementing a model that not only reshaped CNA, but became a model for other staff nurse associations and the broader labor movement. At its heart were unprecedented educational and training pro- grams for CNA members and a forceful challenge to the rapidly escalating corporatization of healthcare that the CNA old guard had accommodated and promoted, resulting in the loss of RN jobs and a deterioration of patient care standards. "They spend a lot of time and resources making sure that the members of the union are educated about the nature of their jobs and the world around them," Sen. Bernie Sanders told the San Fran- cisco Chronicle in a reflection on RoseAnn's retirement. The game plan also featured a strategic shift of establishing alliances with patients and the public, not partnerships with employers. "The issues she cares about, including patient advocacy and social advocacy, are exactly what nurses care about," says Burger. "Nurses, like patients, need an aggressive advocate, and her name is RoseAnn DeMoro." "It was never about her," says Markowitz. "You always knew that it was about the movement, about the nurse, and about the patients, and really about the community and family." "What characterizes her leadership is she never mistakes strategy for tactics, she never sacrifices principle for political expediency," says Don DeMoro, former director of CNA's research arm, the Insti- tute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy. "She's probably the best strategist and organizer in labor, relentless in her commitment to the bedside RN, to their rights, to patient rights, and to medical and social justice in general." The groundwork laid in those early days paved the road for the historic achievements that rapidly followed over the years. 16 N A T I O N A L N U R S E 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 J A N U A R Y | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 "It was her insight. Her understanding of the role of the registered nurse is totally amazing. She understood the power of the registered nurse was not tapped. She tapped the power."

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