Medstar Washington Hospital Center nurses in D.C. ratified a new contract to improve patient safety and nurse retention. Sutter Health Nurses in California did the same, largely to address staffing issues at the facility. Meanwhile, Kansas nurses at Ascension Via Christi St. Joseph Hospital recently unionized. It’s all just a portion of what National Nurses United, the largest union of nurses in the country, accomplished last month. Over the years, the union of nearly 225,000 health care heroes has accomplished so much more.
“NNU nurses held more than 5,000 actions since the pandemic began, which led to victories around health and safety, and forced the Biden administration to enact the OSHA Covid-19 Emergency Temporary Standard to protect health care workers,” NNU co-president and registered nurse Deborah Burger told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “This had a direct impact on Georgia nurses.
“Nurses in Georgia and all around the country forced OSHA to do its job. Nurses got the highest standard of personal protective equipment.”
Founded in 2009, NNU has spent nearly two decades battling for nurses around the country in many ways. But there is one issue within the nursing industry the union is dedicated to improving — the number of patients assigned to every nurse. In an industry with rampant burnout and retention woes, a National Institute of Nursing Research study determined reducing the patient-to-nurse ratio is an effective way to save thousands of lives.
“We have been fighting to ensure that nurses have safe RN-to-patient staffing ratios,” Burger said. “For our union nurses, we have contractual, enforceable nurse-to-patient ratios in their union contracts. We know that safe staffing saves lives. But some nurses are being forced by management to care for too many patients, which doesn’t let them provide their patients with the care they deserve. This is one of the reasons why some nurses have left the bedside.
“We have been advocating for a federal RN-to-patient staffing law, which would mandate the number of patients a registered nurse can care for at one time in U.S. hospitals. This legislation would protect patients and improve health care by setting mandated, minimum, registered nurse-to-patient staffing ratios. Then all nurses would be able to safely care for their patients.”
With the pandemic still underway, NNU has another matter on its collective mind, as well — protecting working nurses from COVID-19.
“We have also been fighting for nurses to continue to get the highest level of personal protective equipment so that they can do their jobs safely and keep their patients safe,” Burger said. “Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have been advocating that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issue a permanent Covid-19 standard for health care workers. OSHA sent its permanent standard to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget for review in December.”
Over the past three years, NNU has unionized more than 7,000 nurses across the country and settled contracts for more than 10,000 union members nationwide.
But the work is not done, Burger said.
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