(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - Nurses “speak truth to power” when hospitals put profits over patients, and Union contracts protect them when they do, says National Nurses United (NNU) President and Registered Nurse (RN) Mary Turner. And that’s why Unions and Workers’ Rights should be strengthened through passage of the Protect The Right To Organize Act (PRO), she told the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Turner, a Minnesotan, was one of two Pro-Worker witnesses on October 22nd at the GOP-run panel’s second in a series of hearings on the State of U.S. Labor Law and the need for reform. 

About the only statement that both parties on the panel agreed upon is that, as one Republican Senator said, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) was written in an industrial era when work, worksites and the economy in general were quite different.

It needs modernization. 

The witnesses split on how, with Unionists on the side of strengthening it and a top Union-Buster, a Right-Wing Think Tanker and a Conservative Grad Student Worker who’s represented by a Union and who objects to its political stands on the other.

Current Labor Law has been weakened by GOP-run Congresses and Federal Court rulings over the last 90 years.

That led Turner to declare: “Our ability to advocate for patients and communities is stronger with Labor Laws that protect our right to organize. Right now, those laws are broken and not just in States with ‘Right-To-Work’ (for less) Laws. Employers routinely violate Workers’ Rights with little to no consequence. The National Labor Relations Act, once intended to protect Working People, has become toothless.”

The positive impact of the PRO Act goes beyond wages and benefits, Turner later told U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan (Democrat-New Hampshire): “The PRO Act protects from Union-Busting, from being fired (without cause and from harassment on the job). It’s everything to the Nurses. That’s why (85%) of them in the state are Unionized.”

Nevertheless, “Big Hospital Systems will reduce services, cut staffing levels, retaliate against Nurses who organize, refuse to purchase essential medical supplies and equipment, close Departments or Units, and even shutter hospitals in rural or underserved communities,” Turner testified earlier. 

To Continue Reading This Labor News Report, Go To: Nurses: Union contracts protect those who ‘speak truth to power’ – People's World

Collage Courtesy Of The NNU’s Facebook Page.