A national nurses union and Southeast Side activists will call on Mayor Rahm Emanuel today to ban petroleum coke in Chicago city limits until the piles of dust are enclosed. National Nurses United says in a news release that an Emanuel-backed ordinance the City Council passed last month to regulate storage of petroleum coke doesn't go far enough.

Quick action from all County workers opposed to pension cuts stopped passage of pension legislation. In a last minute move, Toni Preckwinkle, the President of the Cook County Board went to Springfield the last two weeks of May with an entourage of lobbyists to ram her pension reform package through in the final hours of the session. Preckwinkle, accompanied by leaders and lobbyists from the larger County unions, attempted to convince state politicians to cut County pensions in a last minute appeal.

“Stunning, just stunning, just stunning,” said Sheilah Garland, shaking her head as she stared out the window of the bus rolling along a dirt road next to towering black piles of petroleum coke on Chicago’s Southeast Side. As an organizer of National Nurses United, a labor union representing about 6,000 nurses in Chicago and 185,000 nationwide, Garland has seen a lot. She represents nurses working in grueling and traumatic situations on a daily basis. And the union has picked fights with powerful politicians, including former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Registered nurses and community activists will tour petroleum coke sites in Chicago Monday and publicly demand city officials to declare a moratorium on creating the byproduct they say is a hazard to city residents. National Nurses United is planning a news conference alongside the Southeast Side Environmental Task Force, Southeast Side Coalition to Ban Petcoke, and Progressive Democrats of America.

Health insurance plans have networks of doctors and hospitals that policyholders must use. If a patient wants to see an out-of-network provider, they face higher out-of-pocket costs. But a pending bill in the California Senate would require insurers to offer timely access to care. If that wasn’t possible, patients could see a non-network provider without having to pay more.

One in four Bay State nurses says that patient deaths are “directly attributable” to having too many people in their care at one time, according to a new survey. The survey, commissioned by the Massachusetts Nurses Association/National Nurses United, also found 46 percent of nurses said understaffing has resulted in injury to patients, 51 percent said it has led to longer hospital stays, and 57 percent said it has led to medication errors. Research firm Anderson Robbins did the survey of randomly selected nurses.