California Nurses Association

Nurses Building Power Founded in 1903, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee/AFL-CIO is a premiere organization of registered nurses and one of the nation’s fastest growing labor and professional organizations in the U.S. with more than 100,000 members in hospitals, clinics and home health agencies in all 50 states. CNA/NNOC's presidents are Cokie Giles, RN, Michelle Gutierrez Vo, RN, Cathy Kennedy, RN, and Sandy Reding, RN. CNA/NNOC is also a founding member of the nearly 225,000-member National Nurses United, which in 2009 united CNA/NNOC, the United American Nurses, and the Massachusetts Nurses Association to create the largest union and professional association of nurses in U.S. history. NNU's executive director is Bonnie Castillo, RN and its presidents are RNs Deborah Burger, Nancy Hagans, Jean Ross, and Zenei Triunfo-Cortez. Fighting for Patients CNA/NNOC has attracted national renown as a leading advocate of guaranteed healthcare by expanding and updating Medicare to cover all Americans, for negotiating many of the best collective bargaining contracts for RNs in the nation, and for sponsorship of innovative legislation and regulatory protections for patients and nurses. Most notably, CNA/NNOC sponsored the nation’s foremost RN patient safety law, in California, requiring minimum RN-to-patient ratios, the most effective solution in the U.S. for stemming the erosion of care standards in hospitals.