When I think about what's wrong with health care, I think of Jacqueline.

It's one thing to talk about our broken health care system, but Jacqueline lives it every day. For 19 years, she's worked as a nursing home CNA in Wisconsin. Short staffing in her unit means skipped treatments and longer waits for her patients. And a lack of equipment and supplies puts the strain on the entire facility when things get busy.

Unbelievably, while Jacqueline spends her life providing care for her patients, she can't afford it for herself or her family. The coverage her employer offers costs too much on her salary.

This has to stop. Congress needs to hear how this crisis is affecting real people. Share your story: http://action.seiu.org/page/s/memberstories

Next week, I'm going to Capitol Hill for a Senate roundtable on fixing health care. It's one of three roundtables that Senator Max Baucus is holding to hammer out the final details of a health reform bill.

I cannot overstate how important these roundtables are for the future of health care. Senator Baucus plans to use the input he gets from these hearings to craft a health reform bill next month.

I've been given the honor of speaking at next week's roundtable and I want to use your voice to tell the real story of this health care crisis. Will you take a moment to share your health care story? http://action.seiu.org/page/s/memberstories

We've been given an invitation to literally write the future of health care in America. Let's use our voice to turn the page on this crisis and fix health care once and for all.

SEIU and the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) today announced the signing of a transformative cooperation agreement.

The two unions will work together to organize hospital workers throughout the country who don't yet have a union voice, with CNA/NNOC as the leading voice for RNs, and SEIU as the leading voice for all other hospital workers.

With the opportunity to win the Employee Free Choice Act and healthcare reform just around the corner, both SEIU and CNA/NNOC recognized that their energy and resources would be better spent on uniting all healthcare workers -- instead of focusing on the issues that divide them. Although the two unions have not always seen eye-to-eye in the past, this new agreement puts an end to past conflicts and commits both unions to working together on issues that are most important to health care workers: bringing the power of collective bargaining to all health care workers and advocating for better health care jobs, staffing, and patient care. "It's much more than a truce," SEIU president Andy Stern told AP. "It's really trying to establish a partnership at a moment of profound change in our country."

As part of this agreement, neither union will interfere with the other's organizing campaigns or internal affairs--and will collaborate on future organizing in some of the nation's largest hospital systems. Together, SEIU and CNA/NNOC will create a new joint RN organization in Florida to represent current and future RNs of both unions in that state. In all other states, SEIU will continue to represent its current RN members in bargaining.

Given the challenges facing health care workers today, bringing together the strength of the nation's largest health care union and largest RN union to work towards increased union representation for healthcare workers will hugely assist efforts to enact genuine healthcare reform nationally and for measures that allow states to adopt single-payer health care systems. "Those who recognize our shared value of making sure registered nurses and other health care workers have not only a say but a critical role in helping reshape a failed system into something that actually helps people know that this is the right step to help us meet the challenge and the call of this moment," said Stern.

(Sept. 1, 2008) WASHINGTON, DC - Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Executive Vice President and Nurse Alliance Chair Dian Palmer, RN, issued the following statement regarding the work being done by SEIU nurses and leaders across the country in anticipation of the health impacts of Hurricane Gustav:

"As Hurricane Gustav bears down on the Gulf Coast, leaders of the Nurse Alliance of SEIU Healthcare are mobilizing RNs and medical supplies to arrive as soon as possible to areas threatened by the storm.

"Drawing on their experiences as first responders to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the RN leaders have activated a rapid response system to be able to deploy first responders, and will be working with our partner hospitals and institutions to jointly collect and donate the needed medical supplies such as nebulizers, vaccines, gloves, masks, and medications necessary to deliver competent care to evacuees and victims of the impending storm.

"SEIU Value Care, Value Nurses RN Daniel Rubalcaba has been on the ground since Saturday in Beaumont, Texas, where he is caring for medically fragile patients at the Memorial Herman Baptist Hospital. Daniel is working with the union's national leadership and local authorities to determine and service the areas of greatest need.

"In 2005, SEIU deployed more than 100 RNs along with truckloads of medical supplies to provide care for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Along with the first responders, the union also sent two of its Mobile Action Center trailers to the area to provide phone and internet access to thousands of evacuees.

"Time is of the essence, and SEIU stands ready to do its part to assist the families that live in the storm's path. We will go as soon as feasible and we will stay as long as needed."

For up-to-date information on SEIU's relief efforts, or if you are a Registered Nurse interested in volunteering for the effort, learn more and sign up at www.valuecarevaluenurses.org.

The Nurse Alliance of SEIU Healthcare is the largest national nurse organization, made up of more than 85,000 registered nurses working together to raise standards for their profession and patient care. Because the Alliance is part of SEIU Healthcare - the nation's largest healthcare union - nurses are working with more than one million health care workers to change the face of health care in America.