Hundreds of Nurses Rally on Capitol Hill in National Day of Action
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| 500 nurses rallied for health care reform Wednesday on Capitol Hill. |
Here’s a great report on nurses rallying for health care reform in Washington, D.C., from Katrina Blomdahl, writer-researcher for RNs Working Together, a coalition of 10 AFL-CIO unions representing more than 200,000 registered nurses nationally.
Spirits and energy ran high today as hundreds of nurses from all over the country gathered to participate in a National RN Day of Action in Washington, D.C., adding their voices to the nationwide demands for comprehensive health care reform.
The day’s activities included an animated morning nurses’ conference, followed by a march to Upper Senate Park that gained power along the way, gathering 500 nurses and another 500 patient advocates.
Speakers at the rally included Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC); Ann Converso, RN, president of the United American Nurses (UAN); Gregory Junemann, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE); Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.); Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.); and M*A*S*H actor Mike Farrell.
West Virginia Striking Nurses Win Benefits
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Here’s a great news report from Katrina Blomdahl, writer-researcher for RNs Working Together, a coalition of 10 AFL-CIO unions representing more than 200,000 registered nurses nationally.
In this tough economy, West Virginia nurses at the Appalachian Regional Healthcare (ARH) system are breathing a sigh of relief after the Kanawha County Circuit Court rejected an appeal by their employer to deny unemployment benefits to the nurses who walked the picket line from October to December 2007.
Turns out the hospital blew a filing deadline that the courts apparently intend to enforce.
To the nurses of the West Virginia Nurses Association/UAN it’s a real vindication. Not only did the court refuse to allow the employer to skirt the law for its own convenience—it jammed up the hospital system’s union-busting practices.
West Virginia Nurses Association’s Economic and General Welfare Chair Rue Hairston, RN, says the nurses
are ecstatic about the decision because it’s the David and Goliath story. Goliath keeps coming and David keeps winning.
VA Nurses: One Step Closer to Restored Bargaining Rights
Katrina Blomdahl, writer-researcher for RNs Working Together, says the organization applauds moves to return bargaining rights to Veterans Affairs nurses. RNs Working Together is a coalition of 10 AFL-CIO unions representing more than 200,000 registered nurses nationally.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, and Rep. Bob Filner (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, reached out to right a serious wrong when they recently introduced crucial legislation (S. 362 and H.R. 949) to restore the collective bargaining rights of VA health care professionals, including registered nurses.
For the past several years, health care professionals have been scrambling to meet soaring patient care demands from two wars and an aging population. Meanwhile, the professionals who provide the hands-on care to our veterans have seen their ability to have an effective voice in the workplace eroded by the Bush administration, intensifying the shortage in VA hospitals. The legislation sponsored by Rockefeller and Filner aims to reverse that trend.
N.J. Supreme Court: Striking Nurses Entitled to Unemployment Benefits
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This post brought to us by Katrina Blomdahl, writer-researcher for RNs Working Together, which is a coalition of 10 AFL-CIO unions, representing more than 250,000 nurses nationwide.
Sometimes justice comes in ways you least expect it.
That’s the case for nearly 100 nurses from Willingboro, N.J., represented by JNESO. Two weeks ago, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that striking nurses at Lourdes Medical Center of Burlington County, a 259-bed nonprofit hospital, were entitled to unemployment benefits for the time they spent on picket lines.
(JNESO, which refers to the Union Division of the State Nurses Association, began in 1958 as the Jersey Nurses Economic Security Organization and now is affiliated with the Operating Engineers union.)
The strike started in 2004 and lasted for two years. The workers who filed for unemployment at the beginning of the strike in 2004 were ruled to be eligible for 26 weeks of benefits. New Jersey law allows striking workers to collect unemployment benefits, provided they do not cause their employer to suffer a “stoppage of work.”
