Honoring our nurses
Today is the first day of National Nurses Week and we would like to take this opportunity to recognize the work nurses do to care and advocate for patients and to strengthen our union. Our union now has over 900 nurses (RNs, LVNs and NPs) working in many different settings including general acute care hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, nursing homes, correctional facilities, outpatient psychiatric clinics, and home health and hospice.
Despite these diverse settings, NUHW-represented nurses are fighting for the same things: increased staffing, more input into the decisions that impact patient care, and improved wages and benefits to ensure recruitment of new hires and retention of existing nursing staff. We are waging this fight at the bargaining table, in labor-management meetings, and through petitions, workplace actions, regulatory complaints, public advocacy, and new organizing drives.
We are in this fight for our patients, our fellow nurses, and other healthcare workers. We are also in this fight for our communities and our families, friends, and neighbors, who, at some point, are all patients.
So to truly honor nurses—not just for this week—but all year round, we will continue this fight, and, together, we will win!
Please see the spring issue of our Nurse Newsletter to learn more about the work of NUHW nurses.
In solidarity,
Sophia Mendoza
NUHW President
Vanessa Coe
NUHW Secretary-Treasurer