Leading nurse and healthcare union organizations in 11 countries across the globe are holding coordinated actions during International Nurses’ Week to highlight the global efforts to improve patient care protections, oppose cuts in health care services, and stop the erosion of nurses’ workplace and living standards that are under attack in many countries.

University of Chicago Medical Center registered nurses Tuesday night voted by a strong majority to approve a new four-year agreement with the hospital that they say will strengthen patient care protections at the hospital.

From Eureka in the north west corner of California to Apple Valley in the south, registered nurses who work at St. Joseph Health System hospitals will mark national nurses day May 6 with calls for safer patient care at their hospitals.

Registered nurse will join with teachers and homeowners Tuesday to urge Pismo city leaders to oppose a controversial Phillips 66 proposal to add five additional rail shipments a week of dirty tar sands crude oil through the center of San Luis Obispo County to Phillips’ Santa Maria refinery.

Registered nurses today applauded the introduction of federal legislation to improve patient care for veterans, ensure equity among federal health care workers, and enable the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to recruit and retain a strong health care work force to serve the nation’s veterans.

Registered nurses will be on strike at hospitals operated by the profitable Sutter corporation Thursday in a one-day walkout protesting inadequate staffing and other patient care concerns and corporate demands for some 130 cuts in health coverage for the RNs and their families.

Thousands of California registered nurses will be on strike this week, including RNs at three major Southern California area hospitals in Los Angeles, Torrance, and Santa Monica who are among some 5,000 California RNs who will join walkouts on those days.

An impartial fact finding report made public today on the dispute between Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital and its registered nurses endorses many of the central issues raised by the RNs on patient care delivery and a controversial restructuring plan sought by the hospital.