After a series of strikes during the past two years protesting sweeping reductions in patient care, nurses’ standards and workplace conditions that Sutter Health system demanded during contract talks at San Francisco Bay area hospitals, some 3,000 registered nurses have reached a tentative agreement that eliminates more than 200 concession demands.

Some 725 registered nurses at Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center in Torrance, Calif., won representation from California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU) last week after beating back what they say was a “furious anti-union campaign by hospital management and its high paid anti-union consultants.”

In 2012, MedStar Washington (D.C.) Hospital Center—where some 1,850 registered nurses and members of National Nurses United (NNU) work—unilaterally instituted sweeping reductions and changes in the nurses’ health benefits.

A federal judge last week upheld an arbitrator's ruling that MedStar acted unlawfully and must reimburse the nurses for any increased costs they paid and roll back the reductions and changes.  

Nurses at Chicago's Jackson Park Hospital recently reached an agreement with hospital officials on a collective bargaining contract, National Nurses United (NNU) reported. The nurses went out of their way to make sure the contract wasn't just about improving their own lives, but that it also focused on improving the lives of their patients.

Some 250 registered nurses at Sierra Medical Center in El Paso are the latest group of Texas nurses to vote to join the National Nurses Organizing Committee-Texas (NNOC-Texas), the Texas affiliate of National Nurses United (NNU). Sierra RN Nena Brown said the election:

Is a mandate by nurses at Sierra who are determined to improve the quality of patient care and be the strongest possible advocates for our patients and our community.

Want a reason to support unions? A union may help keep you alive.

Your chances of surviving a hospital stay after a myocardial infarction—also known as a heart attack—are higher if your nurses are in a union than if they’re not.

That’s the conclusion of a study by academics at the University of Massachusetts and the University of California. It’s also part of a much larger picture that the media ignore, that might give even right-wing Republicans a reason to support unions, and that makes the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics evidence of a dwindling union presence bad news for all of us.

When nurses are forced to carry a heavy patient load because of understaffing, the first to suffer are the patients. Several speakers at a Washington, D.C., City Hall press conference Monday said that legislation to establish a nurse-to-patient safe staffing ratio would protect patients’ safety and care.

While most states saw a decline in union membership in 2012, California bucked the trend as 100,000 new workers joined collective bargaining units. Pushing the growth were Latino workers and nurses, the Los Angeles Times reported today. Overall, 11.3% of America's workers are current union members, which is a smaller percentage from 2011, but in California, the number is closer to 18% and is growing. Other southwestern states, such as Nevada and Texas, are also seeing growth in union membership.

UPDATE: With a large number of House Republicans refusing to back asking millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share in taxes, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) pulled his “Plan B.” from the floor last night and adjourned the House. No negotiations between Republicans and the Obama White House on the expiring middle class tax cuts and automatic spending cuts set to go into effect Jan. 1 are scheduled.  But a White House spokesman said, “The president will work with Congress to get this done, and we are hopeful that we will be able to find a bipartisan solution quickly that protects the middle class and our economy.”  

If House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) “really wanted to address the true causes of our long-term budget imbalance, the last thing he would ask Congress to do is pass more wasteful tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans,” AFL-CIO Government Affairs Director Bill Samuel said in a letter to House members today.

In another victory for Southern California “carwasheros” seeking justice, respect and safe workplaces, the workers at Magic Clean carwash in Los Angeles this week voted to join United Steelworkers (USW) Local 675. The Magic Clean employees are the fourth carwash workforce to win their union as part of the CLEAN Carwash Campaign.