News

Surging flu no reason for vaccine mandate

When you decide not to get a flu shot, the risk is that you or someone near you will get sick. But for health care workers, the price is increasingly a pink slip. Hundreds have already been fired.

USA Today

January 10, 2013

Nurses union wants better staff ratios

AUSTALIA--The NSW Nurses Association has said it will campaign for mandatory staffing ratios in more areas of the health system when the NSW nurses industrial award expires in June.

Newcastle Herald

January 10, 2013

Tax Avoidance On the Rise: It's Twice the Amount of Social Security and Medicare

Three trillion dollars a year. That's how much the wealthiest Americans avoid through the system of subsidies and schemes and sweet deals that deprive middle-class workers of their earned benefits. That's three times more than the deficit. That's enough for a full-time job for every middle-class household in America.

Common Dreams

January 9, 2013

The President's Unnecessary and Unwise Concessions

Why is the President back to making premature and unnecessary concessions to Republicans? Two central issues in the 2012 presidential election were whether the Bush tax cuts should be ended for people earning over $250,000, and whether Social Security and Medicare should be protected from future budget cuts.

Robert Reich's Blog

December 20, 2012

Nurses at Kaiser hospital in San Rafael say staffing levels too low

Nurses at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Rafael, and 20 other Kaiser hospitals from Santa Rosa to Fresno, picketed Wednesday to protest what they say is "persistently inadequate nurse staffing." The action mounted by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United comes as Kaiser is attempting to cut its nurse staffing.

Marin Independent Journal

December 20, 2012

Fiscal cliff cuts threaten austerity for 50 million Americans already in poverty

Our nurses see dire need every day in the ER, but the growing gulf of inequality in the US has made such deprivation ubiquitous. With a compromise on social security now unmasked – costing the elderly an estimated 6.2-7.7%, according to business writer Doug Henwood – America becomes more and more a place of poverty. Warnings that austerity begets poverty will go ignored, but the nation's deteriorating condition cannot so easily be overlooked.

The Guardian

December 19, 2012

Bill Nighy visits Malawi to see the difference a Robin Hood Tax could make

Tomorrow is Worlds Aids Day. And those working on HIV/AIDS have an amazing story to tell the world: we can end the AIDS crisis. Breakthroughs in science have shown us that getting AIDS drugs to those with HIV not only keeps them alive and healthy, but can reduce risk of infection by 96%. This news is amazing - from now on, no one needs to die of AIDS - no one needs to become HIV positive.

Robin Hood Tax UK

November 30, 2012

For Obama, a Bigger Win Than for Kennedy, Nixon, Carter, Bush or Bush

It wasn't even close. That's the unexpected result of the November 6 election. And President Obama and his supporters must wrap their heads around this new reality -- just as their Republican rivals are going to have to adjust to it. After a very long, very hard campaign that began the night of the 2010 “Republican wave” election, a campaign defined by unprecedented spending and take-no-prisoners debate strategies, Barack Obama was reelected president. And he did so with an ease that allowed him to claim what even his supporters dared not imagine until a little after 11 p.m. on the night of his last election: a credible, national win.

The Nation

November 7, 2012

St. Johns Health Center Registered Nurses Ratify Collective Bargaining Agreement

St. Johns Health Center registered nurses on Friday and Saturday ratified their first ever collective bargaining agreement in a secret ballot, according to the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United.

Santa Monica Mirror

October 31, 2012

Nurses will strike at seven East Bay hospitals affiliated with Sutter Health on Thursday

Mention nurses in the Bay Area these days and two images come to mind: a caring, nurturing professional at a patient's bedside, and a perturbed, bullhorn carrying protester walking a picket line. By one estimate, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United has called more than 70 strikes at the state's hospitals in the past two years. Its members will walk off the job again Thursday, waging a one-day strike against seven East Bay hospitals affiliated with Sutter Health as part of an 18-month-long attempt to negotiate a new contract.

Silicon Valley Mercury News

October 31, 2012