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Submitted by oldAdministrator on

On the Wings of a Nightingale

Today I ran into a Mexican restaurant to grab a quick lunch, and as I ate my meal I came across a table of nurses wearing hospital scrubs. As they chatted amongst themselves I thought about the many nurses my family has interacted with over the last five years, and I found myself filled with such appreciation for what these amazing women and men do for us.

The Huffington Post Blog
June 7, 2013

Nurses Reach Tentative Agreements at St. Joseph Hospitals in Apple Valley, Eureka and Petaluma

Registered nurses at three St. Joseph Health System (SJHS) medical centers have achieved a tentative settlement with hospital officials on a new collective bargaining agreement that nurses say will bring significant improvements in patient care protections and healthcare security for nurses. The agreement between nurse and hospital negotiators, reached late Wednesday night, must still be ratified by the RNs who will vote on the proposals in membership meetings expected to be held next week. For more information, you can read the press release and news articles collected here.

Multiple Sources
June 7, 2013

Nurses reach tentative labor agreement

Registered nurses reached a tentative labor deal with St. Joseph Health, St. Mary, according to a news release from the California Nurses Association on Thursday. RNs say the new collective bargaining agreement will protect RN-to-patient ratios in the Apple Valley hospital while also preventing increases in the cost of nurses’ health care coverage. “We made major improvements to our contract and gave nurses the tools to advocate for their practice and their patients,” said Ron Herron, a critical care RN at St. Mary, in a prepared statement. “We maintained affordable health care benefits which are critical to attracting nurses to our growing community hospital.”

Victorville Daily Press
June 7, 2013

St. Joseph nurses reach tentative collective bargaining agreement

Registered nurses at St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka, along with nurses from St. Joseph Health System medical centers in Apple Valley and Petaluma, announced on Thursday a tentative settlement with hospital officials on a new collective bargaining agreement. Susan Johnson, a registered nurse in St. Joseph's labor and delivery unit, said, in a press release from the California Nurses Association, that language improvements under the new agreement will create safer staffing conditions for both nurses and patients.

Eureka Times Standard
June 7, 2013

NNU logo

RNs reach tentative deal with Petaluma Valley Hospital

PETALUMA — Registered nurses at Petaluma Valley Hospital and two other St. Joseph Health–affiliated facilities today reached a tentative accord with hospital officials on a new collective bargaining agreement, the California Nurses Association said. The Oakland-based nurses’ union, an affiliate of National Nurses United, said the agreement “will bring significant improvements in patient care protections and health care security for nurses.”

North Bay Business Journal
June 7, 2013

Petaluma hospital nurses reach tentative contract agreement

The California Nurses Association, which represents about 170 nurses at Petaluma Valley Hospital, announced a tentative agreement Thursday with St. Joseph Health, which runs the hospital. CNA negotiators representing more than 900 union nurses at two other St. Joseph hospitals, St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka and St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Valley, also reached tentative labor agreements. Nurses are expected to vote next week on whether or not to ratify the three-year agreement.

Santa Rosa Press Democrat
June 7, 2013

A RAND Report on “Workplace Wellness” Is Quietly Buried for Five Months—Why?

Did you know that in the U.S. “Workplace Wellness” has become a $6 billion industry? That’s how much employers pay vendors who sell workplace wellness programs designed to encourage employees to lose weight, lower their cholesterol, or stop smoking.. Today, firms lay out an average of $521 per employee per year on ‘wellness incentives’ such as gift cards for employees who shed pounds. That is more than double the $260 they spent in 2009 according to a recent survey by Fidelity Investments and the National Business Group on Health.

Health Beat
June 5, 2013

Social Security should be expanded, not cut

Fear-mongers and other critics of Social Security were silenced — momentarily — by the release last week of the annual trustees' report for the programs. The report showed not only that it's looking pretty good in the near term, but in the long term it's more important to the sustenance of millions of Americans than ever before. But policymakers and pundits have taken the wrong lesson from these findings. The argument they most often put forward is that Social Security is so important it must be "saved," typically by cutting benefits to bring its outflow in line with its income.

LA Times
June 5, 2013

Rough sailing ahead for health care reform, but it’s not our only option

You know another storm is brewing when Washington politicians start looking for somebody else to blame for problems they themselves created. That’s what happened recently at a Senate budget hearing when Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus unloaded on Kathleen Sebelius, President Barack Obama’s health and human services secretary. He berated her for failing to adequately educate the public or competently implement the 2,000-plus page Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. During the hearing, Baucus worried aloudabout “a huge train wreck coming down” if the Obama administration didn’t clean up its act. Other Democrats soon piled on.

The Bangor Daily News
June 4, 2013

This Week In America, June 3, 2013

Austerity is a Killer. Estimates put the number of additional suicides at 10,000 and up to a million extra cases of depression across Europe and the U.S. since austerity measures were imposed after the financial collapse of 2008. These findings were highlighted in a new book, The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills, authored by economist David Stuckler and physician Sanjay Basu, and the subject of an interview on Democracy Now!

Weekly News
June 3, 2013