Hi from Colorado! My name is Sharda Fornnarino, and I’m a registered nurse at Rocky Mountain Regional VA.

Last week, nurses and our supporters across the country rallied at congressional district offices of U.S. senators and representatives to protect patient care. We demanded they support a fully-staffed Veterans Health Administration (VA) and collective bargaining rights for VA nurses and other workers. ✊

I wanted to share these photos with you so you could see solidarity in action:

Photos from VA protests

As nurses who care for our nation’s veterans, we must be able to advocate for our patients’ health and safety with the protections of a union. So we are challenging our members of Congress to stand up to the Trump administration’s efforts to privatize the VA and illegally revoke our union rights.

Can you stand with VA nurses and other federal workers by calling your U.S. senator right now at 202-509-0661 and urge them to co-sponsor the bipartisan Protect America’s Workforce Act? We’ve provided a short script below.

We will NOT be intimidated into silence, and we are determined to use our voices to fight for our veterans and the VA. We will stay loud until:

1️⃣ VA nurses have collective bargaining rights restored,

2️⃣ The VA is safely staffed, and

3️⃣ We stop funneling money from the VA into the private sector.

The Protecting America’s Workforce Act has bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. It would overturn the Trump administration’s recent anti-worker executive orders that ripped away critical union protections from hundreds of thousands of federal workers, including more than 15,000 VA nurses.

Moves like this one are part of health care industry executives’ plan to destroy the VA as we know it. They want to funnel taxpayer money away from the VA and into the private sector, where they can extract huge profits at our patients’ expense.

But as a VA nurse, let me tell you: the VA provides world-class veteran-centric care that cannot be found in the private sector. Together, we must protect our patients and stop the billionaire takeover of our public care resources.

This is urgent for VA nurses and our veteran patients: an Inspector General report found severe staffing shortages at the VA had increased by 50 percent in the last year, with nearly 4 out of 5 VA facilities having “severe shortages” of nurses. We need safe staffing now, and we need to be able to advocate for our veteran patients with our union protections. Without our collective bargaining rights, VA nurses lose a vital tool to resolve safety issues and advocate for improvements to patient care.

So now is the time when our elected representatives must decide: Do you stand with us and our nation’s veterans, or are you against us?

Please call your U.S. senator at 202-509-0661 and urge them to stand with VA nurses and other federal workers by co-sponsoring the bipartisan Protect America’s Workforce Act. You can use the script below, and if you’re a veteran, federal worker, or other health care worker, please be sure to mention that in your call.

Script:
Hi, my name is [First Name]. I am your constituent, and I’m a ______ (nurse/other health care worker/patient/veteran). I’m calling today to urge you to publicly oppose the current administration’s latest executive orders to strip federal workers of their rights to organize and collectively bargain, including 15,000 nurses in the VA. Union rights are fundamental to nurses’ role as patient advocates. These executive orders are an outrageous attack on all workers' rights and a blatant union-busting effort by the current administration to silence us all. I urge you to stand up for safe patient care for veterans and health care workers’ rights by co-sponsoring the bipartisan Protect America’s Workforce Act. Thank you.

We know our voices are necessary at the bedside and in the halls of power. Thank you for being with us.

In solidarity,

Sharda Fornnarino, RN
Rocky Mountain Regional VA, Aurora, CO
Local director of NNOC/NNU