Trade unions and the government have traded blows over the impact of the biggest outbreak of industrial unrest in three decades, as up to 2 million public sector workers went on strike, forcing the closure of 62% of state schools in England and the cancellation of 6,000 hospital operations.

The day of action is a rebuke to an elite that gives money to banks at the expense of the poor. Wednesday's public sector pensions strike is more than industrial action; it is a national day of rebuke. The dispute represents many things beyond its central purpose of making ministers think again about trying to make public servants pay more, work longer, and receive less. It represents a rebuke to an elite, represented by the Conservative-dominated coalition, which has treated the banks and hedge funds in precisely the opposite way, giving them more to deliver less in lending and investment.

A report published last week in Health Care Management Review downplays the importance of nurse-patient staffing ratios in the quality of patient care. But Linda Hamilton, two-term president of the Minnesota Nurses Association, maintains that those ratios are still the 20,000-member organization's utmost concern.

New York Times - When Rose Ann DeMoro speaks, her voice sounds like a burbling faucet. Ms. DeMoro, 61, is executive director of National Nurses United, a 170,000-member union that she runs with dramatic flair.