California Nurses, Catholic Healthcare West Set Benchmark for Containing Pandemics
A new agreement between the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) and Catholic Healthcare West sets a national benchmark for containing the spread of pandemics such as H1N1 (swine flu) and protecting patients and workers. Says CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro:
With this historic agreement, we are charting a new course for limiting the spread of not only swine flu but all other dangerous pandemics that are yet to come, We are pleased that Catholic Healthcare West is joining with us to set the highest possible hospital safeguards for patients and nurses and creating an innovative model that every hospital in America should follow.
The agreement creates a new system-wide emergency task force, comprised of CNA/NNOC RNs and hospital representatives following the declaration of pandemic emergencies.
Labor Across Prime Time TV
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Prime time last night was well worth watching. The NewsHour on PBS profiled AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, and MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann hosted California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro.
NewsHour showcased Trumka’s start as a coal miner in Pennsylvania and his graduation from Villanova Law School, his rise to president of the Mine Workers and his key role in the tough battle against Pittston Coal Co. The segment included clips from those early days, through to his emotional acceptance speech at our convention in September, when he was elected AFL-CIO president.
As NewsHour pointed out, Trumka made his name “as a bulldog against corporate overreach” while he was AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer.
Nurses Will Strike for Flu Safety
Some 16,000 registered nurses, members of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), are concerned that hospitals across California and Nevada aren’t doing enough to prepare for H1N1 flu, including adopting new safety standards put forth by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Cal/OSHA) and guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
They’re demanding proper equipment and procedures to treat patients with H1N1 symptoms and make sure that nurses and other patients don’t get sick. It’s a potential crisis that must be addressed now, so that vital health care facilities and staff aren’t strained.
The nurses, who work at three hospital chains, plan an Oct. 30 strike to protest the insufficient measures taken to prevent the spread of H1N1 flu among patients and health care workers.
Lies, Damned Lies and a Health Insurance Industry Report Condemning Reform
With the prospect of Congress passing health care reform legislation becoming more likely each day, the nation’s health insurance industry has launched a new scare campaign to torpedo reform. Ironically, in doing so, Big Health Insurers also have shown why a public health insurance plan option is vital to real health care reform.
The insurance industry trade lobby, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) just released a report that claims the Senate Finance Committee’s version of health care reform legislation would raise average family premiums to $21,300. The report makes clear that the insurance industry will not lower health care costs on its own. Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), called the report
an outrageous threat by one of the richest industries in America….Our legislators should respond to this bullying and stop coddling a useless industry whose sole function is to make enormous profits from the pain and suffering of patients while providing little in return.
Massachusetts Nurses Say ‘Yes’ to RN Super Union
Delegates to the Massachusetts Nurses Association’s (MNA’s) annual convention yesterday voted overwhelmingly to become part of the largest registered nurses union in U.S. history—National Nurses United (NNU).
The new NNU unifies the 23,000-member MNA with the 86,000-strong California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), which voted to join the super union in September. The 45,000-member United American Nurses (UAN) will hold a vote on whether to join later this month.
Social Media: New Tools Aid in Organizing
They’re tweeting in Northern California about the Employee Free Choice Act, sharing about health care reform on Facebook in Montana and posting organizing messages on My Space for workers in York, Pa.
Across the country, union members are using the new social media to mobilize workers and share information.
Steve Selby, an Electrical Workers (IBEW) organizer in York, Pa., knows the value of social media. He urgently needed to reach 300 workers at a local Comcast office. Rather than standing outside the office and handing out a flier with different information each day, Selby taught himself how to set up a MySpace account. He handed out one flier directing workers to his MySpace page, where he shared information the workers needed to know.
Are Industry Lobbyists Raising Our Health Care Premiums?
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While the Senate Finance Committee is slogging through more than 530 amendments to Sen. Max Baucus’ flawed health care reform bill, more than 2,700 lobbyists are working overtime to protect the private health insurance industry and other health care corporations.
Protecting their health industry clients means blocking a public health insurance plan option, derailing strong health care cost controls and gutting tough new health care rules that would put people before profits.
In trying to kill the public option, insurance industry lobbyists are thumbing their nose at the American public, who strongly support a public option. A New York Times/CBS poll released today found that 65 percent of respondents want a public health care option, while only 26 percent oppose such a plan.
Cal Nurses Say It with Flowers: Pass the Employee Free Choice Act
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With a nod to 1960’s “flower power,” some 1,200 members of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) called on Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) last week to co-sponsor and support the Employee Free Choice Act.
The nurses marched to Feinstein’s San Francisco home and each left a rose with personalized note attached describing their experiences and struggles trying to win a union at their workplaces. Many related stories of intimidation and harassment by management in their efforts to win recognition for their union—and the toll that such union-busting can take on patient care. Says CNA/NNOC Co-President Deborah Burger:
In the past, Sen. Feinstein has said she supported the bill, but appears to be wavering. 1,200 RNs made this house call to let her know that employers are trying to silence us when we advocate in facilities, and that patients end up paying the price for this union-busting. Employers are breaking the law in their harassment of nurses, and we deserve a free choice and a fair chance to speak up for ourselves.
Studies have shown that unionized nurses save lives, reduce turnover, and increase caregiver morale in facilities. That would be good for any hospital—and every patient.
This week, at the AFL-CIO Convention in Pittsburgh, both President Obama and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis spoke out in strong support of the Employee Free Choice Act.
CNA/NNOC Hosts Moore’s ‘Capitalism: A Love Story’ for AFL-CIO Convention
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Pittsburgh isn’t just hosting the AFL-CIO Convention next week: The city also will host a special showing of Michael Moore’s latest documentary, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” Monday night.
Moore, who most recently directed “Sicko,” now turns his lens on the U.S. financial and economic crisis. On Monday, Sept. 14, following the second day of the AFL-CIO Convention, AFL-CIO delegates and guests will get a chance to see the film.
Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), says that the film is:
the best major labor film in years…an unabashed advocacy of working people and critique of an unjust system and the financial misdeeds that have led to the gravest economic crisis since the Great Depression.
Insurance Companies Run Death Panels When They Deny Coverage
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Health care reform protestors, extremist radio and television talkers and some mainstream Republicans trying to kill President Obama’s health care reform initiative have frequently, but falsely, claimed the health plan would create government “death panels” to decide who gets treatment and who dies.
(Click here to find out the truth behind other big lies about health care reform.)
What these defenders of the private health insurance industry don’t say is that those panels already exist. But they are not operated by the government—they are run by the private health insurance industry itself.
