National Nurses United
organization of registered nurses
National Nurses United (NNU) is the largest organization of registered nurses in the United States. With more than 225,000 members, it is the farthest-reaching union and professional association of registered nurses in the U.S. Founded in 2009 through the merging of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, the United American Nurses, and the Massachusetts Nurses Association, the NNU focuses on amplifying the voice of direct care RNs and patients in national policy. The union's policy positions include the enactment of safe nurse-to-patient ratios, patient advocacy rights at the Executive and State level, and legislation for single-payer health care to secure "quality healthcare for all, as a human right." The organization's goal is to "organize all direct care RNs into a single organization capable of exercising influence over the healthcare industry, governments, and employers."
Leadership
The executive director of the national organization, which is affiliated with the AFL–CIO, is labor leader Puneet Maharaj, who also heads the 90,000-member California Nurses Association, and the National Nurses Organizing Committee. The former executive directors include RoseAnn DeMoro, who served as National Vice President and Executive Board Member of the AFL–CIO, and Bonnie Castillo.
Activities
Single-payer health care
The organization backs a Medicare for All single-payer healthcare plan for the United States.
To support a single-payer system, NNU leadership mobilized large-scale demonstrations demanding single-payer healthcare be included in the platform at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.
Occupy Wall Street
National Nurses United has held numerous protests, including one in front of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and another on Wall Street, to protest privatization and profiteering in the health care industry.
NNU supports a tax on financial transactions, which the organization says could raise at least $350 billion a year.
Support for Bernie Sanders
In The New York Times on January 28, 2016, Nicholas Confessore reported, "According to Federal Election Commission records [NNU's] 'super PAC' has spent close to $1 million on ads and other support for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders". The NNU spending was classified as "Expressly advocating the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate." In 2019, NNU officially endorsed Sanders for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
The public source identifies “National Nurses United” as organization of registered nurses. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around National, Nurses and United.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6974601. VIAF identifies the subject as 179614752. The Library of Congress control number is n2011183209. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2009, 2016, 2019 and 2020.
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This entry incorporates text from “National Nurses United” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.