national nurses union formed

Most nurses don't really follow what their state nursing associations are doing. If you pay dues you periodically get a newsletter. If you are part of the labor aspect, contracts are negotiated every few years and your unit has a union rep. Unless it affects you personally, you probably don't care except to complain you pay too much in union dues or what kind of raise was negotiatiated. You leave it to the people who are willing to get involved.

So you probably didn't know that for several years there has been a national union of nurses called the United American Nurses. It arose within the American Nurses Association and was part of it for some time. A couple of years ago the UAN dropped out of ANA over funding (I think). The union activists didn't think ANA was addressing the needs of staff nurses like they should have.

Several years prior to this, the California Nurses association. the Massachusetts nurses association, (in the last year or so) the Minnesota Nurses Association dropped out of ANA for the same reasons. This past summer the United American Nurses, the California Nurses Association, the Massachusetts Nurses Association and the Minnesota Nurses Association agreed to form a national nurses union. It will be called the National Nurses United. 160,000 nurses will be part of it. The founding convention is in December in Arizona.

I for one, think its a great development. It will give power to the staff nurse that has been lacking for a long time. I can't wait to see what happens...