Registered nurses and community activists will hold a vigil and petition California congress members Wednesday, April 8 to highlight the call for a small tax on Wall Street speculation, the Robin Hood Tax, that would help raise the revenue needed to fulfill the goals of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for social and economic justice in our nation.

With Americans marking the 47th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. just days earlier, a broad coalition of registered nurses, organized labor, anti-AIDS advocates, college students, clergy, and other community activists will converge on 25 U.S. cities Wednesday to amplify the call for a Wall Street financial transactions tax to reverse the country’s crippling inequality.

Nurse volunteers with Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN), a disaster relief project of National Nurses United and the California Nurses Foundation, will embark this week upon the USNS Comfort (T-AH 20), a Military Sealift Command ship, joining military personnel and health care professionals, engineers and environmental experts for a humanitarian mission that includes mission stops in 11 countries in South America, Central America and the Caribbean.

The federal board that oversees labor-management relations has thrown out the flawed union election last June at Sutter Memorial Medical Center in Modesto citing a pattern of coercion and other actions by hospital officials that violated the rights of registered nurses who were considering affiliation with the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United.

Registered Nurses at Las Palmas Medical Center are calling on the hospital to protect its employees after several were hit by vehicles while trying to cross the street to get to work from the employee parking lot, according to the National Nurses Organizing Committee-Texas.

On Wed. April 1, registered nurses will rally in front of the Harris State Building, to share personal stories of workplace violence—and to voice continued support for the highest level of protections, as new California Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Cal/OSHA) hospital workplace violence regulations move through their final public hearing.

Norwood, Mass. -- The registered nurses working at Norwood Hospital, and supporters will hold a community rally on Wednesday, April 1, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. to call attention to the nurses’ hopes of protecting and advancing patient care at the hospital. The rally will be held at the Aaron Guild Park near the hospital inside Washington, Central and Guild Streets in Norwood.