Speech: Three Nurses Unions Merge to Advocate for a Better, Healthier America.

On December 7, 2009, in Phoenix, AZ, Stewart Acuff, of the National AFL-CIO, praised the unprecedented move by the leadership of the California Nurses Association (CNA), Massachusetts Nurses, and the United American Nurses (UAN), to merge into one union -- the National Nurses Union (NNU), affiliated with the AFL-CIO. In his rousing address, Acuff added that the merger will give nurses in America a strong, unified voice to advocate for better wages, safer working conditions, and real, fundamental health care reform. Acuff also addressed the need to pass the Employee Free Choice Act -- a bill that would restore American workers with the right to collectively bargain, impose penalties on companies who violate labor laws, and ensure workers who choose to form a union achieve a first contract through mediation and arbitration.