In what is believed to be the biggest U.S. election win for non-union hospital registered nurses in seven years, RNs at a Los Angeles area hospital Wednesday night voted to join the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United. With their hard fought election win – by a count of 279 to 261 in secret ballot voting conducted by the National Labor Relations Board – RNs at Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center in Torrance, Ca. withstood what CNA characterized as a furious anti-union campaign by hospital management and its high paid anti-union consultants.

CANTON, Mass. — Last week, the Attorney General’s office certified a ballot e initiative that will require hospitals to be transparent about their financial holdings and other activities, to limit CEO salaries and to limit and claw back excess profits to ensure that taxpayer dollars are dedicated exclusively to safe patient care and necessary services for all communities in the Commonwealth.

In yet another reprimand for Barstow Hospital and its parent company, Community Health Systems of Tennessee. On behalf of the National Labor Relations Board, an administrative law judge Monday found that Barstow has broken federal law and violated the rights of its registered nurses through its refusal to engage in good faith bargaining with the RNs and their union, the California Nurses Association.

In nearly 30 membership meetings the past six days across California and Nevada, registered nurses have overwhelmingly approved a new four year collective bargaining covering 12,000 RNs at 28 hospitals in one of the nation’s largest hospital systems. The nurses are members of the California Nurses Association and National Nurses Organizing Committee-Nevada, both part of National Nurses United, the nation’s largest organization of RNs.

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses United Thursday asked the federal labor board to schedule a secret ballot election for union representation for 600 registered nurses at California Pacific Medical Center’s Pacific campus, one of the few hospitals in San Francisco where the RNs remain non-union. CNA is also calling on CPMC and its parent company Sutter Health to respect the democratic rights of the RNs by agreeing to a fair election process by which the nurses will be able to consider unionizing in an atmosphere free of coercion or intimidation.

CANTON, Mass. — The Patient Safety Act today received certification from the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office. The Patient Safety Act will dramatically improve patient safety in Massachusetts hospitals by setting a safe maximum limit on the number of patients assigned to a nurse at one time, while also providing maximum flexibility to hospitals to adjust nurses’ patient assignments based on the specific needs of the patients.