Wall Street Should Pay for Wrecking the Economy
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The greed of large banks and Wall Street firms has wrecked our economy, wiping out pensions and portfolios, throwing us into a recession, costing us millions of jobs and squandering American productivity.
Yet nobody on Wall Street has paid the price for this wrongdoing. The National Nurses United (NNU) is calling for a financial transaction tax of 0.5 percent on Wall Street trading.
NNU: Lawmakers Have ‘Real Choice’ to Reform Medicare
In a letter to the New York Times today, Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United (NNU), says the Republican plan put forward by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is “little more than a thinly veiled scheme to destroy one of the most fundamental reforms in American history through privatization and further cost-shifting to many of the most vulnerable in our society.”
The “real choice,” DeMoro says:
would be securing the future of Medicare once and for all by extending it to cover everyone. Through its proven formula of global budgeting and federal bulk-purchasing power, it is the best way to effectively control costs while ensuring that we change our broken health care system from one based on ability to pay to one based on patient need.
Time for a Contract for Main Street
Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United (NNU), writes at the Huffington Post about how the struggles in the Midwest and around the country have exposed the fact that there are two Americas: one where the rich get bailouts and bonuses and the rest of us get our benefits slashed and gutted.
That’s why it’s time for a Main Street Contract for the American People, she says, one that ensures jobs at living wages, affordable education, guaranteed health care for all and a secure retirement, among other things.
If it sounds like the Second Bill of Rights envisioned by President Franklin Roosevelt, that’s just a reminder of how far we as a nation still have to go, how far our democracy has been hijacked and corrupted, and how imbalanced our priorities have become.
The American people, not Wall Street, deserve their own economic renewal package. It’s time to reclaim our country. And we will.
Read the entire column, “Bargaining for the USA: Time for a Main Street Contract for the American People,” here.
Nurses Launch ‘ProtestInTheUSA’ News Line to Encourage Protests
Inspired by the popular protests in Egypt, around the world and in states like Wisconsin, National Nurses United (NNU) today launched a news line designed to help coordinate and encourage grassroots protests in the United States.
The news line will live at www.Twitter.com/ProtestInTheUSA and bring together notices, reports and videos from protests concerning democracy, health care, workers’ rights and human rights, among other issues. All individuals and groups in favor of basic democratic values are invited to join and share protests.
NNU Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro says:
With so many families and working people in America in trouble, with the recession, health care crisis, staggering disparity in income, and the ongoing corporate chokehold of our economic and political structure, more and more people will be taking to the streets calling for real change. If you’re not protesting, you’re not paying attention. It’s up to all of us to help spread the fire.
California Nurses Win Improvements in Tentative Kaiser Deal
The California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU) reached a tentative agreement with Kaiser Permanente today. The three-year contract includes more than 20 important professional and economic enhancements and, significantly, no reductions in patient care protections or economic or professional practice standards, according to the union.
CNA/NNU said it is withholding additional details of the tentative agreement until after ratification. If approved, the contract would cover 17,000 registered nurses and nurse practitioners in 21 hospitals and 40 medical office buildings across Northern and Central California.
CNA/NNU Co-President Zenei Cortez said:
This proposal protects our patients, defends our hard-fought economic and practice standards in a tough economic environment, and demonstrates again the strength of our professional union, CNA/NNU, and the unity of Kaiser nurses.
NNU Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro congratulated the Kaiser nurses and Kaiser executives for their forward-thinking in:
achieving an agreement that promotes and expands nurses’ and patient standards rather than engaging in a short-sighted confrontation and unneeded concessions. This settlement encourages nurse retention and recruitment for Kaiser, is a boon to patient care, and sends a message to other employers about what is possible.
For Sixth Time in a Month, Florida Nurses Join NNU
For the sixth time in about a month, registered nurses at a Florida hospital voted last night for a stronger voice in patient care by joining National Nurses United (NNU). This time it was the 300 nurses at Oak Hill Hospital in Brooksville, near Tampa.
Since mid-November, more than 2,100 registered nurses at six Florida hospitals have voted to join National Nurses Organizing Committee-Florida, NNU’s Florida affiliate. The combined margin of victory in the six votes was about 3-to-1 (74 percent to 26 percent).
At all six hospitals, the RNs say they are seeking a stronger voice for better nurse-to-patient ratios, improved procedures for floating assignment of RNs beyond their areas of clinical expertise and experience and improved economic standards, including better retirement security in pensions and medical coverage.
AFSCME: Whitman’s $100 Million Finances ‘Outright Lie’
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Meg Whitman, probably the deepest-pocketed candidate on any ballot in recent memory, has poured more than $100 million, according to recent campaign finance reports, into her quest to buy California’s governorship and impose her Wall Street agenda on the Golden State.
A new television ad from AFSCME says the billionaire former eBay CEO and Goldman Sachs board member, “is spending her riches on a”
dishonest ad campaign the media has exposed as shameful and an outright lie. Meg Whitman—she won’t let the truth stop her, but you sure can. Read the rest of this entry »
Businessweek Profiles CNA/NNU’s DeMoro
In a major profile of Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU), Bloomberg Businessweek writes:
DeMoro is expert at dishing out political pain with a flourish, a talent that has endeared her to her 86,000 constituents in the California Nurses Association. Under DeMoro’s leadership, the union has recast itself from a special-interest trade group to a consumer and patient advocate that lobbies hard—and volubly—for universal health care and patients’ rights.
“Nurses are the last line of defense for patients,” says DeMoro from a seat in her cactus-filled office at the union’s Oakland headquarters. “This isn’t about just bread-and-butter issues for registered nurses, this is about living in a good and a just society.”
1,000 Nurses Rally for Safe Staffing
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Some 1,000 registered nurses from around the country rallied on Capitol Hill yesterday to show their strong support for legislation to establish minimum nurse-to-patient ratios for all hospitals in the country. The bill is modeled after a California state law that sets minimum ratios there.
With signs that read “I’m A Patient Advocate,” ”Safe Patient Ratios Save Lives” and “Safe Lift Now,” the nurses, members of National Nurses United (NNU), made the case that the care they are able to give their patients is being hampered by long working hours and cutbacks so management can maximize its bottom line.
The rally was made up of nurses like Monica Sanchez, a registered nurse from El Paso, Texas, who told KFOX14-TV she traveled nearly 2,000 miles to send a message to Congress:
We need to do better. We really need to advocate for our patients and get the staffing ratios to help us help the patients.
Nurses Issue Urgent Call for Help in Haiti
National Nurses United (NNU) issued an urgent call last night through its nationwide disaster relief network to recruit nurse volunteers to assist residents of earthquake-devastated Haiti. Thousands are feared dead after the impoverished island nation was rocked by a 7.0 earthquake and severe aftershocks yesterday.
Details are still being worked out, but nurses can sign up at the NNU website, www.nationalnursesunited.org. NNU also will provide follow-up information at www.twitter.com/nationalnurses for details and plans.
Said NNU Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro:
We are calling on nurses throughout the U.S. to join us in this critical effort. Nurses will be fundamental to the disaster relief process, to provide immediate healing and therapeutic support to the patients and families facing the devastation from this tragic earthquake.
