Jill Furillo
Executive Director
New York State Nurses Association
USA
Biography
Jill Furillo became a registered nurse in 1985 and has worked as an Emergency Room nurse, an organizer, the Executive Vice President of the RN Division of 1199, and the national bargaining director of National Nurses United (NNU), the largest union of registered nurses in the U.S., among other roles. As government relations director of the California Nurses Association, Furillo led the lobbying effort that successfully shepherded the country's first safe nurse-to-patient ratios through the California legislature. Building on this groundbreaking legislation, Furillo worked on behalf of thousands of nurses as a chief negotiator and strategist at NNU to win comprehensive safe staffing standards in collective bargaining agreements in states from Nevada to Florida. Furillo joined NYSNA as executive director in 2012 in order to work with the newly elected Board of Directors and rank and file activists to help transform NYSNA into a progressive voice and union for registered nurses throughout New York. Under this new leadership, NYSNA launched a campaign to keep hospitals open, winning a moratorium on all hospital closures in the state until such time as an accurate and complete assessment of the health needs of distressed communities is carried out.
Research Interest
Nursing, Healthcare