Representatives from the Massachusetts Nurses Association/National Nurses United, along with State Representative Denise Garlick, RN (D-Needham) will hold a press conference at the State House on Thursday, Nov. 1, to brief reporters on a new law to ban the dangerous practice of mandatory overtime as an alternative to providing safe registered nurse staffing levels in the state’s acute care hospitals. The new law goes into effect on Monday, Nov. 5.

Registered nurses at St. Johns Health Center in Santa Monica showed up in force to ratify their first ever collective bargaining agreement in secret ballot voting Friday and Saturday, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United announced today.

Affinity Medical Center RNs, along with a growing number of concerned community members, will be holding a second candlelight vigil Friday evening to protest the unjust termination of Ann Wayt, a highly respected orthopedic RN who has worked at the facility for 24 years. Prior to the vigil, nurses and supporters will march in the Beat McKinley parade scheduled for 7 p.m. and then return to the hospital for the candlelight vigil at 8 p.m.

Nurses and consumer advocates challenged Charles Munger Jr. and George Joseph, the two billionaires behind Props 32 and 33, to a public debate on the merits of the ballot measures they have together spent $39 million to promote. Props 32 and 33 will hurt working people in California, but the two reclusive billionaires have refused to step out of the shadows and defend their measures in a public forum, preferring to hide behind massive paid advertising campaigns fronted by public relations firms.

Registered nurses at Brotman Medical Center will hold a picket Tuesday morning to call on the private equity firm that operates the Culver City hospital to forego its proposals that would undercut patient care standards and make a commitment not to erode patient care.

Registered nurses and hospital officials have reached a tentative agreement on a first collective bargaining agreement at Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica that ends a long-running dispute at the hospital, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United announced today. Key to the agreement are provisions that the nurses say will enhance patient protections, as well as economic gains, no reductions in nurses’ health coverage or pensions, and other contract protections that the RNs say will promote quality of care and retention of experienced RNs and recruitment of new nurses.