Nobody would call RoseAnn DeMoro, who transformed the California Nurses Association into one of the state’s most powerful political forces and a national player, retiring. But on Sunday, she will retire from the organization she has led for 32 years, saying she leaves the union “100 percent” ready to fight its battles.
Platforms are,a statement of the accepted beliefs of the party assembled. For citizen movements, they are a measure of their progress in defining acceptable opinion. And ideas matter. A commitment to ending segregation or guaranteeing the right to vote. Equal rights for women. No first use of nuclear weapons. The DNC prevented Sanders from picking nurses leader RoseAnn DeMoro - the DNC had not wanted labor leaders on the platform drafting committee.
National Nurses United may be proof that unions are not all on their way out: Some are very much alive, although they may look a little bit different than they used to.
“Nurses United is among the most innovative and bold of U.S. unions,” said Harley Shaiken, a labor expert at Berkeley. “They’ve emerged as a powerful voice in defense of people who receive health care treatment.”
When the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington ruled Friday to
overturn President Obama's recess appointments to the
National Labor Relations Board, it handed a huge gift to Wall
Street, big corporations and the politicians they control.
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