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.

Nurses and members of National Nurses United (NNU) know that if Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits are cut, people they care for every day will be hurt. This is why across the United States and in Washington, D.C., NNU is running bus ads as part of a national campaign telling Congress not to push seniors off of the so-called "fiscal cliff."

Here’s a roundup of reactions to last night’s election victory by President Obama and other working family candidates from national and state union leaders.

AFT President Randi Weingarten:

The American people voted today to create opportunity and shared prosperity by sharing responsibility, and to reject the cynical "you’re on your own" philosophy.

Check out the AFL-CIO's new In Our Communities website feature, "Recovering After Superstorm Sandy."

The recovery from Superstorm Sandy could be one of the most expensive in American history, with estimates climbingtoward the $50 billion mark in property damage alone. As Americans all across the country pitch in, most of the work repairing and rebuilding the storm-ravaged areas will be done by talented and hardworking union members. Many of the organizations dealing with Sandy’s devastation emphasize the importance of union workers’ expertise and skill, as well as of sufficient government financial support for rebuilding physical structures and roads and, in many cases, people's lives. Here is what our members have been doing to help with the recovery: