Registered nurses will picket 21 Kaiser Permanente hospitals from Santa Rosa to Fresno Wednesday, December 19 to protest what they say is persistently inadequate nurse staffing in emergency care and other hospital areas, as well as patients being turned away from needed care, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United announced today.

In the spirit of the season, RNs also collecting canned goods for local food pantry. According to Gayle Burke, RN and co-chairperson of the MNA bargaining unit at Holy Family, nurses on every floor and in every unit are being forced to care for too many patients at once--a practice that has been proven to be dangerous by countless research groups and studies over the last two decades.

The nation’s largest organization of registered nurses, National Nurses United, today condemned the decision by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and far right state legislators to push a so-called “right-to-work” bill in the lame duck session of the state legislature.

Registered nurses, laborers and food and commercial workers from across Michigan are urging Gov. Snyder to stop the politically motivated attacks on working families by publicly pledging to veto any so-called “right to work” legislation that reaches his desk.

Nurses across the nation are turning up the heat on Congress and the White House with candlelight vigils and other actions in some 20 cities, beginning in Chicago on Thursday, December 6 and continuing across the U.S. Monday, December 10. JOIN US! Click for details.

It’s become an annual tradition. Nurses are the most trusted profession in the U.S., topping the annual survey by Gallup for the 11th straight year for honesty and ethical standards of 22 occupational groups tested.

The largest association and union of registered nurses in the U.S., with 185,000 RNs, put a stamp today on the national debate surrounding the so-called “fiscal cliff” with an ad campaign in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere across the country. Don’t Push Seniors Off The ‘Fiscal Cliff’ – Tax Wall Street – appears on billboards and buses (see graphic, attached, and photo of D.C. bus, below) as part of a stepped-up effort by National Nurses United to protect communities and to call for a Wall Street tax to put the country on the road to a real recovery. Candlelight vigils by nurses and supporters will also be held in 20 cities on December 10 as part of the nurses’ campaign to heal America.