MINNEAPOLIS, MN – Leaders of three major nurses' organizations that are coming together to form the largest registered nurses union and professional association in U.S. history have said they will hold a founding convention Dec. 7-8 in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Meeting in Minneapolis last week, leaders of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, United American Nurses and Massachusetts Nurses Association also agreed on the name for the new, 150,000-member national organization: National Nurses United.

"This represents another step forward in the growing movement of direct-care nurses to finally claim a national voice with true national power," said Ellen Smith, RN, an intensive care nurse at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Mass., and a member of the MNA's board of directors. "As the debate over healthcare reform takes center stage, it's essential that direct-care nurses, those who spend the most time with patients, have the ability to make their positions known and their voices heard."

Martha Kuhl, RN, secretary-treasurer of CNA/NNOC and a nurse at Children's Hospital in Oakland, Calif., said meeting with other pediatric RNs in Minnesota was a precursor to the upcoming work of the NNU.

"I was very excited to get together with other children's hospital nurses and look forward to working nationally with nurses for a single standard of pediatric care, along with a single standard of care for all patients," she said. "Nurses united will have enormous influence to fight for that reality."

Last week's session of the new union's interim executive committee continued a unification process that will culminate in December. All three organizations will have national conventions prior to December to ratify the new union, which officials say is intended to build a stronger, more powerful national movement of direct-care RNs and spur representation campaigns for non-union nurses into an RN-led union.

"As staff nurses our time has finally come," said Sandra Falwell, RN of the DC Nurses Association and a UAN director. "Just think about all the management heads that turned grey when they heard what we are doing. I'm glad I've lived long enough to see this happen and know what a great legacy this would be to pass on."

The NNU plans to emphasize protecting and expanding patient rights and RN professional practice, including promoting a Senate bill, S 1031, the National Nursing Shortage Reform and Patient Advocacy Act, which is modeled after the California law establishing RN-to-patient safe staffing ratios.

The new organization also intends to strengthen the voice of nurses in the national healthcare debate.