Support Organizers Fired for Requesting Time Home

**Since creating this GFM another organizer has been fired in retaliation for staff union activity. Aaron (4 years with NNU and 15 years in the labor movement) was placed on administrative leave for six weeks immediately after he presented a petition to management, then fired without any progressive discipline.

All members of the Rotation Policy committee in our CBA have been disciplined since joining, and every non lead Black organizer in our department has now been disciplined or terminated.**

National Nurses United/National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNU/NNOC) organizers supported their co-workers who were unjustly disciplined just for asking for time home. But rather than work with them, Organizing Department Directors cracked down and fired three organizers who signed a support petition– Ananiya, David, and Tanya.

Now, Tanya's family is facing eviction and losing access to medical care following a family member’s stroke. David and his RN partner will have to leave their home in New Orleans. Ananiya is unexpectedly without income or health care after standing with his fellow workers advocating for sustainable working conditions.

We're asking you to chip in to help organizers who lost their livelihoods for standing up for their co-workers. And we ask you to spread the word by asking NNU to undo their Organizing Department's retaliation. By chipping in, you help these organizers and their families, and help them as they continue to push for changes.

“Just like nurses take action to protect patient safety, we took action to improve our union staff's ability to grow the union and fight healthcare corporations. When organizers are shamed for taking care of their families, work to the point of exhaustion, aren't included in any decision making, our relationships and campaigns with nurses take the hit."

-Tanya

Tanya and Ananiya.

Organizers proposed solutions to their department’s retention crisis– and their directors responded with unionbusting.

Over the last year, directors of NNU/NNOC’s Organizing Department have severely cut back on organizers’ time home with their families and days off, up to the point of violating California labor law by having teams work 7 days a week for months on end. Directors began shortening the amount of promised time home with each successive round of hires.

When Tanya's father had a stroke, she asked for time at home to see to her father's care and insurance arrangements. But Directors gave her an extremely hard time and leaned on her to minimize it as much as possible. She did as they asked, but after they fired her, they've had the audacity to say that this meant Tanya didn't "go above and beyond" during the campaign. The same went for David, who simply held his ground on family commitments he'd let NNU know about when he was hired in May.

Another organizer asked to have just four days at home in a month with his wife and son. Directors then forced him off of the Denver campaign just weeks before the vote, wrote him up for insubordination, and pulled crucial staff off of their work with a majority Black nurse population in New Orleans as a replacement in Denver.

In response, Directors forced him off of the Denver campaign just weeks before the vote, and pulled crucial staff off of their work in New Orleans as a replacement.

This kind of posture toward the basic human needs of staff has produced a retention crisis in the department. Out of a department of 30 some organizers, 10 organizers resigned or left in the first six months of 2024 alone. On our most recent campaign in Denver, a strategically critical one, we lost 3 organizers in a month due to the untenable working conditions. It's no wonder that our campaigns are struggling. For the first time in 7 years, NNU lost a union election on the heels of losing a decertification fight last year.

Three organizers shared proposals with NNU management based on other unions' practices for how to better balance our schedules. They were told by directors that the turnover was fine and there was no retention issue. Within weeks, all three organizers found themselves written up for the first time in their careers with NNU.

"One of the reasons I wanted to work for NNU was my partner is a nurse in New Orleans. We know how urgent it is for nurses to organize and transform the healthcare system. My partner has been involved in NNU organizing for two years and has friends in every hospital in the city. What are we supposed to tell people, now that NNU has fired organizers for doing exactly what organizers tell nurses to do--come together with their co-workers to demand change?"

-David

David and his RN partner of 11 years, Emily.

Punished for standing up for their colleagues

Knowing that such brazen union busting would set a disturbing precedent against the staff's ability to raise concerns, a majority of all NNU organizers signed a letter of support for the three committee members. Two weeks after presenting that letter to management, three of the organizers who signed on were terminated, none having any prior discipline. Disturbingly, our staff union failed in their duty to represent its members and seems to have worked behind the scenes with directors to foster an environment of fear and prejudice against organizers.

I signed onto the petition against retaliation because I believed NNU would respect our concerns and have a discussion with us if a majority of us raised our voices together. But they decided it was more important to make an example of us than to improve the effectiveness of our staff.

-Ananiya

If a hospital was:

NNU/NNOC would stand up and FIGHT that hospital for the nurses and for patient safety. Unfortunately, that's exactly what Organizing Department Directors have done, and that's why we need your support.

Stand with organizers who stood up for our union

So today, we're asking you to chip in and spread the word. The funds will go to organizers who are without income to help them stay housed and fed.

We've texted, e-mailed, and sent a letter to NNU Executive Director Bonnie Castillo, but we have no idea if she's received it. We ask you to tweet your donation or link to this GoFundMe with your concerns to @NNUBonnie . It's time for NNU leadership to investigate unionbusting in the Organizing Department, reinstate organizers fired for protected concerted activity, undo the retaliation against their colleagues, begin following California labor law, and have a real discussion with organizers about needed changes.

If you have suggestions for networking or resources, please do let us know in your messages! *If you are an employee of NNU, please make your donation anonymous. We are concerned about additional retaliation for supporting us.*