Jean Ross, BSN, RNional Nurses United Co-President
Jean Ross is the National Nurses United Co-President. She worked for 35 years at Fairview Southdale Hospital, in Edina, MN. She became active in the Minnesota Nurses Association in the wake of a historic nurses strike in 1984, when 6,000 Twin Cities-area nurses took to the picket line to defend seniority rights. Ross held the position of chief steward at her hospital for 20 years. In 2001, she helped lead a strike of Fairview nurses that achieved landmark contract language allowing nurses to close a unit to new patients when it was too understaffed for them to provide safe care. She held positions as chair of the MNA’s Economic & General Welfare Commission (1997–2001) & director on the United American Nurses Executive Council (2002–2006). She helped bring together UAN nurses with their colleagues in the Massachusetts Nurses Association & California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee to form National Nurses United in 2009. .
