Leaders of eight AFL-CIO unions representing nearly 200,000 registered nurses announced today that they are banding together to coordinate their organizing and bargaining activities in an effort to improve patient care nationally and give nurses a strong voice in fixing a health care system that is dangerously broken. The new alliance of RN unions is calling itself RNs Working Together. The AFL-CIO Executive Council will vote on recognition for RNs Working Together as an Industrial Coordinating Committee (ICC) under the AFL-CIO model at its winter meeting next week in San Diego, Calif.

"We have a big job ahead to fight for the quality care that every patient deserves and win the respect and working conditions that will help solve the nursing shortage," said Cheryl L. Johnson, RN, president of the United American Nurses, AFL-CIO. "RNs are joining together across our unions to take collective action through this coalition. We can't count on hospitals to do the right thing, but we can count on each other."

The RNs Working Together coalition is mobilizing a national campaign to address a looming threat to the rights of RNs to fully exercise their voice as patient advocates: the National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB) expected spring decision on the union rights of nurses. If the NLRB rules that nurses who occasionally oversee others - a large percentage of RNs, by most estimates - are technically supervisors, it would remove important National Labor Relations Act protections and lead to chaos in the health care workplace.

"We cannot tolerate a ruling by the NLRB that would strip us of rights that have protected patients, as well as nurses, for over 30 years," said Nancy Kirby, RN and Local 20, USW Health Care Workers Council at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, N.J.

"200,000 nurses will be sending the message loud and clear that we are the voice of nurses, we are the advocates for patients, and we will not allow any of our colleagues to be silenced," added Ann Twomey, President of Health Professionals and Allied Employees/AFT Healthcare.

RNs Working Together is the first ICC to be formed in any industry. At last July's AFL-CIO convention, the labor federation approved the creation of a new structure, the Industrial Coordinating Committee, to foster common strategies and practices for unions within a given industry. Unions that agree to join ICCs would receive additional support from the labor federation, and AFL-CIO unions that do not join the ICC would be prohibited from organizing in that industry.

Other ICCs are in the planning stages for the entertainment industry and unions that represent state workers. Through the formation of the new registered nurse ICC, unions will cooperate and share information on joint organizing, member education and political and bargaining strategies to increase the power and voice of RNs at the bedside and build a stronger voice for quality patient care.

"As Department of Veterans Affairs nurses struggle to care for the nation's veterans, this new structure will allow unions to pool our resources, leading to more aggressive legislative, political and bargaining activities benefiting nurses and challenging the way the government and the health care industry treat one of its most valuable resources," said Jane Nygaard, National Vice President, AFGE.

Health care is one of the largest and fastest growing sectors of the national economy, employing more than 2 million nurses. While most RNs are not yet represented by a union, more and more are turning to unions and to collective action to change work and care conditions that endanger patients and nurses as well as to win the pay, benefits and professional respect nurses deserve.

"Our collective voice will help us to be more effective in our fight for adequate and appropriate staffing levels - one of the most critical factors impacting our ability to provide safe patient care, " said Kathy Sackman, President, United Nurses Associations of California/AFSCME.

In recent years, union RNs have bargained contracts banning mandatory overtime, requiring hospitals to provide enough nurses for safe patient care, and protecting nurses from workplace violence to dangerous patient lifting, among other improvements.

"We're looking ahead to coordinating bargaining and organizing campaigns, starting with some very effective models already in place. We'll build upon these relationships to improve working conditions for our members and the quality of patient care nationwide," said Debora Hayes, RN and CWA Health Care Coordinating Committee member.

"In our hospital, nurses have a strong voice at work and we use it to speak up for our patients," said John DeWitt, RN, President of UAW Local 2399 at Newberry Hospital in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. "With all of these unions working together, nurses will have an even stronger voice nationwide on issues like staffing, hospital safety and professional standards. That's good news for our patients - because top quality patient care is at the very top of our list of concerns."

The eight unions that comprise RNs Working Together are United American Nurses (UAN), the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), United Steelworkers (USW), Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) and the UAW.