The Blog: California | National Nurses United

Nurses, Environmentalists to March on Golden Gate Bridge Thursday With Call to Stop Keystone XL Pipe

Nurses and environmental activists from across the U.S. are joining hands this week to step up the message that there is still time to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline before it stops all of us. Join us for a march across the Golden Bate Bridge in San Francisco Thursday, June 20, beginning with a noon rally at Battery East, near the Golden Gate Bridge Pavilion at Fort Point adjacent to the Bridge. More »

California Blog

Retired RN Kay McVay Honored with 2013 “RAGE for JUSTICE” Award

Kay McVay worked as a registered nurse in critical care for nearly four decades before retiring in 1995. She is a tenacious and effective champion of patients’ rights who was elected and served as the former Vice President, and then President of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee from 1994 to 2003. As a young girl growing up in Compton, California, school counselors discouraged her aspirations to become a nurse. The rest is history. More »

Nationwide, California Blog

Oakland City Council Approves Resolution to Support Robin Hood Tax

Registered Nurse Thorild Urdal told the Oakland City Council recently how she sees patients struggling everyday to survive during these tough economic times. They're delaying healthcare, rationing medication or not buying medication at all. “I see them coming in worse and worse shape, “ the Alta Bates Medical Center nurse said. That’s why Urdal and her fellow nurses are calling for a Robin Hood Tax to help our communities recover from the economic crisis caused by Wall Street. More »

California Blog

Hospitals Should Be Care Providers Not Loan Sharks

If there is one problem that symbolizes the ongoing national healthcare emergency, it is the rampant price gouging in the healthcare industry that continues to price too many Americans out of access to care and into financial ruin. Not only is the problem not solved by the Affordable Care Act, but it is a likely reason many will continue to demand more effective reform, as in expanding and extending Medicare to cover everyone. More »

California Blog

Holding California private non-profit hospitals accountable for Charity Care

ACTION NEEDED by May 24th--AB 975 would clearly define charity care to ensure it is care for the poor, not marketing, cutting of services or other schemes, and redefine genuine community benefit, and assure greater public transparency. Send a messages to the Assembly Appropriations Committee ASAP! More »

California Blog

CNA Nursing Angels Family Fund - Please Donate and Share the Page

This year’s Nurses Week was sadly darkened by the death of five caregivers in a tragic limousine fire on the San Mateo Bridge. To honor them and assist their families, we have established a fund. Please consider making a donation and sharing the link with friends. Thank you. More »

California Blog

NURSE TALK RADIO: Accountability in Nonprofit Hospitals - AB 975

Have you ever wondered about what a business or an organization has to provide in order to acquire and keep a not-for-profit (aka nonprofit) status? RN and Director of Government Relations for CNA, Bonnie Castillo talks about a bill, AB 975, that aims to press California non-profit hospitals to fulfill their charity care obligation in exchange for the substantial public financing they receive through their tax-exempt status. More »

California Blog

National RN Upadate: DC Actions, Stop Social Security Cuts, Charity Care, Massachusetts

TAKE ACTION to stop Social Security Cuts! Join us on April 20 in DC. Robin Hood will be marching from the IMF and World Bank to the US Treasury to demand a Robin Hood Tax in the U.S. We hope you can join us! On April 17 Congressmember Ellison (D-MN) will be holding a press conference to herald the reintroduction of The Inclusive Prosperity Act which calls for a Robin Hood Tax. Get details and see more updates! More »

Nationwide, California, Massachusetts, Medicare For All Blog

Time for Hospitals To Act as Good Corporate Citizens

Has therapeutic healing and recovery become a vanishing mission among California hospitals? Are California hospitals operating as big corporations more devoted to piling up cash than to assuring the delivery of care? A look at how California's private, not-for-profit hospitals are meeting their responsibilities for providing charity care and community benefit programs suggests many have lost their way. More »

California Blog

Collusion on charity care abuse just the latest

SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan’s sordid scorecard: ‘We are proud of it and would do it again’ says Regan of his attack on ratios. RNs across California who work side by side with SEIU-UHW members are probably already aware of the sweeping concessions Regan and his coterie have signed with hospital managers. More »

California Blog

National RN Updates: Florida, Illinois, California, Michigan, Missouri

Florida Nurses Welcome First Contract, Illinois Jackson Park Chicago RNs Win First Hospital Contract, California RNs Reach Agreement with Sutter CPMC & St. Luke, Michigan MNA President, Jeff Breslin on Right To Work, Missouri Nurses Push for “Safe Patient Handling” Law HB 856, and more. More »

California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, MIssouri Blog

Stephanie Roberson on Why You Should Care About Health Care and Staffing Legislation

AB 975 Charity Care? Check it out. Or maybe SB 631 Observation Study? You don’t want to end up in a hallway at the hospital for over 24 hours do you? Listen as we check in to see what the California Nurses Association has been doing lately to fight for nurses and their patients. More »

California Blog

Why labor should oppose the pipeline

As pressure from the fossil-fuel industry, conservative Canadian and US politicians, and some construction unions mounts on President Obama to greenlight the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline project, a growing coalition has a different message. More »

Nationwide, California Blog

CNA RNs, Labor Supporters Join Sutter Solano RNs to Condemn Illegal Attacks on Nurses’ Rights

Sutter Solano registered nurses, joined by RNs from other hospitals and local labor leaders spoke out Tuesday to condemn the Vallejo hospital executives for illegal threats and disciplinary actions against nurses who have exercised their collective rights to protest sweeping concession demands. More »

California Blog

Time to Act Now To Restore Our Ravaged Mental Healthcare System

Registered nurses across the country mourn the loss of life marked by the shooting of innocents in Connecticut. This should be a clear wake up call for the White House, Congress, and state and local legislators to take action to address causes of the violence, including restoring the devastating cuts that have occurred to mental health services across the U.S. More »

Nationwide, California, Medicare For All Blog

Robin Hood actions say ‘No to Cuts, Tax Wall Street to Spark Recovery’

Outside the district office of Rep. Charles Rangel, Robin Hood Tax Campaigners from National Nurses United (NNU) and Health GAP found an engaged audience today. These residents of New York’s Harlem are wondering when the recovery will arrive. Their neighborhoods are a mix of shuttered brownstones and half-empty condos, a sign of the realty speculation that somehow, someway never brought decent, affordable housing to Manhattan’s northern-most community. More »

Nationwide, California, FTT Blog

What’s At Stake When Billionaires Try to Buy Our Democracy

The shameless spectacle of billionaires drowning the airwaves should not numb us to the consequences of what is at stake if the super rich succeed in buying our elections. While most of the national focus is on the Presidential race and some high profile Senate elections, the less profiled California ballot measures provide a disturbing portrait of what is a clearly broken system. More »

California Blog

Letter to Billionaire Prop 32 Backers Charles Munger Jr. and George Joseph: Show Your Faces

Gentlemen, the California Nurses Association and Consumer Watchdog invite you, the primary financial sponsors of Propositions 32 and 33, to join us for a public debate on the merits and adverse consequences of these measures and the impact they will have on all Californians. More »

California Blog

The shadowy figures trying to permanently steal our elections

I am a nurse and I know how wealth is valued over the health of my patients with today’s recreation of an aristocracy born of speculation and no sense of community values. Since 2000, business interests alone have poured an obscene $1.7 billion into California campaigns to sway candidate and initiative campaigns. More »

California Blog

Why defeating Prop. 32 is a patient safety priority

It would be easy for voters, sick of the auction of California politics to the biggest spenders, to be tempted by the misleading advertising for Proposition 32. But all the ads for 32 ought to come with a warning label – beware of buyer’s remorse. More »

California Blog

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