About NNU

Who Is NNU?

National Nurses United is a labor union based in California.

NNU’s Maine office is in Bangor. In our region, the NNU affiliate, Maine State Nurses Association, represents Registered Nurses at:

  • Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center
  • Calais Regional Hospital
  • Maine Medical Center

NNU takes an activist, sometimes adversarial, approach to union representation. NNU’s tactics include:

  • Negative media campaigns against hospitals and their leaders
  • Strikes, pickets and protests
  • “Marches” on the offices of a hospital’s senior leaders
  • Billboards, ads and social media campaigns critical of the care provided at targeted hospitals

NNU Dues

According to NNU’s Constitution (pp. 37-38)

  • Full-time RNs pay 2.2 times their hourly rate, up to $117 per month – a maximum cap that can increase every year.
  • Dues can far exceed $1,000 a year for some nurses.
  • The NNU dues structure is designed to increase every year, based on increases at the three hospitals at which pay is highest.
  • Your dues might go up even if you did not receive a pay increase.
  • Dues Increases: “The maximum amount (cap) of regular direct member dues shall increase based on the average wage increase in the preceding calendar year at the three (3) NNU-directly represented or NNU Affiliate-represented facilities with the highest RN base rate wages.”
  • Part-time/per diem dues:
    • RNs working 12 hours per week or less per pay period pay 50% of the full-time rate.
    • Some per diems pay more than $500 a year in dues.

Dues Calculator

To determine what your monthly and annual dues might be under MSNA/NNU, enter your base hourly rate in the calculator below:

  • Base hourly rate x 2.2 = monthly dues
  • Monthly dues x 12 = annual dues
  • Annual dues x 3 = total dues paid over a typical three-year union contract
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According to NNU's Constitution, dues equal 2.2 times your hourly rate of pay. This means that the more you make, the more NNU takes.

How NNU Spends Dues Money

NNU is the umbrella organization for various state nursing unions, among them the California Nurses Association (CNA). However, many of NNU’s costs –– along with those of its state affiliates like Maine State Nurses Association – are run through CNA.  There is little transparency into how each union spends members’ dues money.

The union is a big business supported almost entirely by member dues.

  • In 2020, NNU collected more than $13.4 million, according to its financial reports on file with the U.S. Department of Labor.
  • By comparison, CNA reported for the same year that it collected $167 million(despite the fact that NNU reports having 156,000 members to CNA’s 116,000).

In 2021, NNU and CNA report spending a combined $9.7 million on political activities, often channeled through various political action committees making it difficult to track which issues and politicians the unions jointly support.

Whether or not you support the same candidates or causes the union does, your dues money will fund those campaigns.

Wonder why you’re seeing so much information about MSNA/NNU/CNA on your Facebook feed?

Total union ad spending on Facebook in 2020:
$184,131

Total union spending on PR Agency Fenton Communications:
$643,848

Follow the Money: What Your Union Dues Would Fund

NNU/CNA DUES REVENUE AND SPENDING FOR 2020-2021

NNU CNA
Total Revenues $13,482,929 $167,158,685
Number of members 156,575 116,018
Spending
Representational Activities $2,114,006 $36,413,185
Political Activities and Lobbying $1,885,891 $7,842,156
General Overhead $2,591,397 $25,313,844
Total Payroll $2,832,194 $39,196,601
Strike Benefits $0 $0

Source: U.S. Department of Labor Office of Labor-Management Standards – 2021 Forms LM-2 https://olmsapps.dol.gov/query/getOrgQry.do

On average, the unions spend about 25% of members’ dues on direct representation for members. The rest goes toward union overhead and union administration, including pay and benefits for union officers and staff.

CNA has more than 600 employees on its payroll, while NNU reports more than 200, although there is some overlap between the two.

  • Bonnie Castillo, Executive Director of CNA and NNU, was paid $300,000 in 2020.
  • Each the union’s three co-presidents received about $100,000 from the union, in addition to their salary from their hospital employer.

Dues also fund political campaigns and gifts and grants to other organizations, including other unions’ strike funds – even as NNU/CNA does not itself pay strike benefits.

NNU Position on Shared Governance

With a shared governance model, nursing teams work together to achieve nursing excellence and quality patient care – a source of pride for SHH.

But NNU does not support shared governance and has come out against the Magnet journey at several hospitals. Here’s what the union had to say about Magnet and Shared Governance in its founding documents:

“…the position of CNA/NNOC must be unqualified opposition to Magnet Recognition and similar programs, including categorical rejection of any form of participation or support for such programs and their deceptive entrapments like shared governance.”

Source: Hospital Magnet Status: Impact on RN Autonomy and Patient Advocacy.