Thank you for donating to the Nurses Support Fund, which has helped union nurses in New Orleans to keep working towards better patient care conditions at University Medical Center!

Since your most recent donation, this fund has directly supported over 50 nurses, and lifted up nurses’ outreach across the community. This has allowed nurses to continue pushing for their historic first contract, which will enable them to provide the top-level care our community needs. .

Unfortunately, management at University Medical Center continues to actively work against their employees, refusing to agree to competitive wages, which are essential to staffing the hospital safely. . Although executives comfortably make six and seven figure salaries, nurses at UMC still aren’t given cost of living increases or pay that reflects their years of experience or professional training.

This isn’t just bad for nurses themselves, who deserve to be paid a living wage like everyone else in New Orleans . It also hinders the recruitment and retention of high-quality, experienced nursing staff , which means that when you or a loved one visit UMC as a patient, you’re less and less likely to be seen by a highly experienced nurse.

The good news is that UMC’s union nurses continue standing strong for better patient care conditions. Your support of this fund is helping to make that possible. Thank you!

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With a two-day strike (FEB 5-6) planned for the Wednesday and Thursday before the Super Bowl, management has decided to lock their own nurses out for an ADDITIONAL THREE days so they can pay scab nurses >$8k per head to replace them. They say that's the minimum time the agency is offering, but we know it's designed to punish them as well as get more nurses to cross the picket line. After a year of negotiations, this strike is the only way to put an end to the games that LCMC is playing with peoples' lives.

Although nurses are some of the better compensated workers in the region, many are living paycheck to paycheck due to debt, family expenses, and missing work due to the snow storm. As working New Orleanians we know what it means to have our own desperation leveraged against us. That's why it's so important for us to seize this opportunity and help turn the tide for all working people. Please take some of the financial burden off of the dedicated healthcare workers who are fighting for us all and looking after those most in need in our community.

LCMC negotiators provoked the February strike by falsely accusing Union nurses of being absent for the carnage of New Year's Day. Of all the institutional failure to point a finger at, the Union is the last organization they should lay any blame on. Please give deep and remember that AN INJURY TO ONE IS AN INJURY TO THE WHOLE WORKING CLASS!

The New Orleans Rank and File Project and New Orleans City Workers Organizing Committee were enlisted to set up this worker-controlled strike fund by union nurses participating in the UMC strike. All funds raised will go to nurses who go on this strike at UMC, distributed by NOCWOC according to needs assessments done by the nurses' committee.