NationalNurseT H E V O I C E O F N AT I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D November | December 2015

PICTURING A BETTER WORLDA photo review of 2015

BACKBREAKING WORKRNs lobby for safe patienthandling

WHERE DID I READ THAT AGAIN?2015 Editorial Index

Forces ofNatureRNs demandclimate justice

NATIONAL NURSE,™ (ISSN 2153-0386

print/ISSN 2153-0394 online) The Voice

of National Nurses United, November/

December 2015 Volume 111/8 is pub-

lished byNational Nurses United, 2000

Franklin Street, Oakland, CA 94612-

2908. It provides news of organizational

activities and reports on developments of

concern to all registered nurses across the

nation. It also carries general coverage

and commen tary on matters of nursing

practice, community and public health,

and healthcare policy. It is published

monthly except for combined issues in

January-February, April-May, July-

August, and November-De cember.

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Please contact us withyour story ideasThey can be about practice or manage-

ment trends you’ve observed, or simply

something new you’ve encountered

in the profession. They can be about

one nurse, unit, or hospital, or about

the wider landscape of healthcare

policy from an RN’s perspective.

They can be humorous, or a matter

of life and death. If you’re a writer and

would like to contribute an article,

please let us know. You can reach us at

nationalnurse@nationalnursesunited.org

EXECUTIVE EDITOR RoseAnn DeMoro

EDITOR Lucia Hwang

GRAPHIC DESIGN Jonathan Wieder

COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR Charles Idelson

CONTRIBUTORS Barb Brady,

Gerard Brogan, RN, David Schildmeier

PHOTOGRAPHYJaclyn Higgs, Tad Keyes,

Choppy Oshiro

the end of the year isalways a good time to takestock of accomplishments andmissteps over the past 12months, and to look towardthe year ahead for all the joysand challenges we anticipate.We’re always amazed when weconsider all this organizationand we nurses manage to packinto one year!

2015, as usual, was filledwith successful organizing

drives, hard-fought but victorious contract fights, andstrikes. On our social unionism front, our members’activism seemed to jump to the next level, as so many of us threw our time and energy into campaigns asdiverse as restoring hospital services in northern Massa-chusetts, to protesting passage of the destructive Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal in Washington, D.C., tofighting petcoke dust piles in Chicago and tar sands oilrefining in Southern California, to advocating for a crack-down on wage theft in El Paso, Texas. And, of course, nowthere is all things Bernie. As nurses, we understand thatall of these aspects of life: healthcare access; clean food,air, and water; climate change and environmental healthor destruction; safe and affordable housing; free educa-tion; and living wage jobs heavily factor into our patients’ and our communities’ health. So if nurses are patientadvocates, we must advocate in our greater society for the things we know would improve patient health. Youcan get a sense of all of our work over this past year from

the photo wrap-up in this month’s issue. We love to seeyou in action.

Also in this issue you can find coverage of what Massa-chusetts nurses are doing to address workplace violence, areport from CNA/NNOC’s two successful Staff NurseAssemblies in November and December, and other news.And this issue also contains the annual editorial index,which is always handy for locating a story you know you’veread, but just can’t remember in which issue you read it!

2016 promises to be a doozy of a year. We’ve got thepresidential election approaching and the chance to makehistory. It’s never been more apparent – with the election,the global violence we are facing, and the Paris climatechange talks that just ended – that the world is at a cross-roads. As nurses, it’s our job to lead all of humankind on thepath of caring, compassion, and community.

Deborah Burger, RN | Karen Higgins, RN | Jean Ross, RNNational Nurses United Council of Presidents

Letter from the Council of Presidents

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