Nurses demands a healthy society for working people, not warfare and profiteering for billionaires and corporations

National Nurses United, the country’s largest nurses union with more than 225,000 members, is proudly and enthusiastically taking part in May Day Strong actions on May 1, 2026. NNU recognizes that May Day presents a unique opportunity to demonstrate to the Trump administration and the billionaire class the real potential of working people’s power when we stand united. 

Nurses are standing with communities across the country to demand a better future. Nurses are clear on our positions: Abolish ICE, stop war, end harm, and fund care. We believe that creative disruption and organizing, such as our recent victories in hospitals in the South, are the keys to making our vision for a healthy society into a reality.

“Every day, we bear witness to the pain caused by this administration’s cruel and unjust policies,” said Jamie Brown, RN and a president of National Nurses United. “We see how our tax dollars are being used to enrich the billionaire class and leave the working people to suffer. But, as nurses, we care for one another, and I know that it is through care that our movement will grow and create a powerful force that will win the class war.” 

“Nurses are proud to help build a vision for a healthy society,” said Connor Smith, RN at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Ill. “Rush University nurses are excited to cast our ballots and to take part in May Day Strong events. As union members, we will not only have a say in our workplaces when we negotiate with our employers, but we will add our voices to the mighty chorus of the labor movement as we work together with our union siblings to build a world free of corporate domination.”

May Day is an internationally recognized day of resistance to corporate greed, dating back to 1886 and the fight to win the eight-hour workday in Chicago. NNU is calling on all working people who are able to refrain from shopping or going to school and instead, to take part in creative disruptions.

To find and join a May Day Strong event near you, visit www.mobilize.us/mayday.  

Labor in action

Nurses understand the importance of taking the fight directly to the billionaires who are profiting off the administration’s anti-union, anti-worker, and anti-immigrant agenda. Strikes are time-tested and time-honored disruptions of the status quo and show bosses in no uncertain terms who has the power.

As NNU and the nation prepare for May Day, nurses in New Orleans are preparing for their own worker action.

Nurses at University Medical Center New Orleans in Louisiana have given their employer, LCMC Health, notice that they will hold an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike for five days starting May 1, 2026. The nurses charge the employer with bad-faith bargaining after dragging out contract negotiations for more than two years.

“We want a contract that allows us to provide the best care possible to the people of New Orleans,” said Umer Mukhtar, RN at University Medical Center New Orleans. “LCMC apparently doesn’t believe that laws about good-faith bargaining apply to them, so we are striking to hold them accountable to get what our patients deserve.”

NNU knows work stoppages like these send a message to hospital employers that nurses are ready and willing to do the organizing and creative disruption necessary to building a better future.

This year, National Nurses United unveiled our Vision for a Health Society. This vision guarantees a good life for everyone. On May Day, NNU encourages all those who can to participate in actions that work towards our vision’s goals, including the right to guaranteed free health care; the right to a good education; the right to a healthy planet; the right to safe and affordable housing; the right to a unionized living-wage job; the right to care; the right to live safely and peacefully; freedom from corporate domination; freedom to move and the freedom to stay in the communities people see as home; and the right to enjoy life.

National Nurses United is the largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses in the United States with more than 225,000 members nationwide. NNU affiliates include California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, DC Nurses Association, Michigan Nurses Association, Minnesota Nurses Association, and New York State Nurses Association.