Nurses march nationwide for safe staffing, patient protections against A.I.

100,000 National Nurses United members bargain new contracts in 2025

Staff report

National Nurse magazine - Jan | Feb | March 2025 Issue

Thousands of registered nurse members of National Nurses United (NNU) held actions, including marches, protests, and rallies, on Jan. 16 to demand the hospital industry ensure safe staffing levels and patient safeguards amidst the rapid introduction of artificial intelligence technologies.

This year, more than 100,000 NNU members are entering contract negotiations with their employers, including multibillion-dollar health care organizations such as UCHealth and Dignity Health. In negotiations, nurses plan to confront industry decisions that undermine patients’ health and well-being and fail to address chronic RN recruitment and retention issues — in favor of increasing profits.

“Nurses across the country are taking to the streets to let our communities know that in 2025, as in all years past, we are committed to providing the highest quality of care for every patient,” said Nancy Hagans, RN and a president of NNU. “We will fight fearlessly against the profit-driven hospital industry, which seeks to undermine nursing care through unconscionable understaffing and reckless automation.”

Nurses say solutions, such as mandated nurse-to-patient ratios and guaranteed workplace violence prevention plans, will help address the hospital staffing crisis by returning nurses to the bedside. 

Hagans, RN continued, “Patient advocacy is at the core of what we do as nurses. That’s why we’re demanding safe staffing and protections against untested technologies such as A.I. We see the harm that these cost-cutting schemes cause our patients on a daily basis.”

In 2024, NNU released its Guiding Principles for A.I. implementation that promotes quality patient care, safety, and equity. Based on member reports from around the country, NNU has shared its deep concerns with the current implementation of A.I. with hospital employers, policy regulators, and the public.

For decades prior to the introduction of A.I. technology in hospital settings, NNU nurses have fought back against employer efforts to deploy unproven technology to deskill, speed up, and replace their work. Through collective action and collective bargaining agreements, they have won technology protections designed to safeguard patients and the nursing profession – with the latest example across HCA facilities.