CNA set to strike at Oakland Children's Hospital

[Kuryakyn]

As usual, the cna is again about to have their nurses at the childrens hospital in Oakland walk out and abandon patients over an increase in insurance premiums! The nurses at this particular hospital make an average of $136,000 yearly with 85% of their insurance premiums taken care of by the hospital. This is the mindset of the cna/nnu....GREED! So now they abandon ill children who need them to get better insurance premiums? This isn't about management as they would have you believe, this is about putting more money in their fearless leader boss rose's pocket. She already makes over $200K yearly! Don't let the pro unionists have you believe that this is anything other than about the almighty dollar. All this does is make the unionized nurses look just as greedy as boss rose and even worse to the general public. Cast off the yoke of unionization and learn to speak and act for yourselves. No one should have to pay to have a job! No one should be subjected to senority style pay raises! And nobody, I mean nobody should be subjected to nurses abandoning their patients over insurance premiums or anything else! Be an individual not a union automaton!!

[Chico David, BSN, RN]

The option of moving jobs is always there. One does what one has to in order to care for theirselves and family. I wouldn't hesitate to leave a hospital like the one in the article. How much was their pay cut? How much had the union inflated their pay? I left the first hospital I worked at after nursing school due to the incoming new nurses making more than i was after 3 yrs of employment. I left the hospital and moved 3 hrs north for another job with family in tow. Love where i am now and never had to go on strike or pay dues.

TO CHICO; Its quite intersting how you always like to indicate that an anti union nurse on this forum is a spy or otherwise. Not now nor ever have i been anything other than a RN. Not a schill or spy. I work in a RTW state that has very minimal union influence in the healthcare arena and will probably continue that way. Unions aren't the only answer. Unions are for automatons who like others to speak for them and also pay them to do it!

If you had worked in a unionized environment in that first job, new nurses coming in at higher pay would not have been a problem and you could have saved all the costs of moving - enough to pay many years of union dues for most people.

I merely pointed out a recurring pattern. And it is a recurring pattern. In general, people who join this site as regular participants are likely to be here a while as readers before posting, often comment on others' posts before posting themselves and typically post on more than one subject. But, as I said before, we do get this other sort that always shows up when we are in a fight with a deep-pocketed enemy - who joins and immediately starts posting attacks on our union and posts nothing else but that. Far be it from me to accuse any specific person of anything without evidence. Patterns are just patterns but can sometimes be instructive. Another pattern is that "boss Rose" usage, which suddenly started to appear here only since we got into our fight with a certain very deep-pocketed (but ultimately doomed) political candidate.

Unions - the good ones anyway - actually allow nurses to stop being automatons who just obey at work and do as they are told. It gives us the backing and the opportunity to stand up for ourselves and out patients knowing that we have the support of a strong institution behind us. And good unions are highly democratic institutions that allow anyone with the interest and desire to become a leader - taking control of their own destiny, not just being ground up in a mill every day. I love the community I live in and I love the people I work with. 15 years ago a bunch of highly incompetent and very corporate types took over the leadership here. They cut resources and increased work loads. They told us "if you don't like it go somewhere else". But we figured this was our hospital, not theirs so we didn't leave - we unionized. Now they are all gone, every one of them, and we are still here, making twice what we were before and doing very much better. I'm not interested in moving every time a bad manager comes along. That's giving those suits control of my life. I'd rather stay here and band together to drive them out.

[nicurn001]

the option of moving jobs is always there. one does what one has to in order to care for theirselves and family. i wouldn't hesitate to leave a hospital like the one in the article. how much was their pay cut? how much had the union inflated their pay? i left the first hospital i worked at after nursing school due to the incoming new nurses making more than i was after 3 yrs of employment. i left the hospital and moved 3 hrs north for another job with family in tow. love where i am now and never had to go on strike or pay dues. not everyone is able to move to another job , for example as in the present economy , if someone was to need to sell their house it may be far enough under water the propective jobs are no longer a viable option . some may live in the middle of nowere with no nearby alternate employer and with the gravity of generational family roots in an area , they may not wish to move ,. as at present coming by another job may be so hardthat geting another job is not a viable option ( look at all the other contributions upon various threads , of nurses being unable to find a job anywhere ) etc....so the option to move is not always there .that is the reason why i asked for a viable alternate course of action to change managements actions , other than joining a union , yet again its a strike out , you who oppose unions have no real alternate except run with your tails between your legs to another job were it is equally possible that your new employer could be better or worse than your previous employer ,but heaven forbid that you should consider joining a union, rather than continue to be sc****d by your employers .

in the situation you describe , re .why you didn't need a union , you would not have been earning less than new employees because the pay scale would have rewarded your loyalty to your employer by annual increases related to your seniority . whilst your professional developement would have been rewarded by the clinical ladder , so if you take classes etc.your continued educational efforts would be rewarded . you may not have gone on strike and saved paying dues , but you probably incurred greater costs in the moving expenses , even taking into any potential tax write off for those expenses .

to chico; its quite intersting how you always like to indicate that an anti union nurse on this forum is a spy or otherwise. not now nor ever have i been anything other than a rn. not a schill or spy. i work in a rtw state that has very minimal union influence in the healthcare arena and will probably continue that way. unions aren't the only answer. unions are for automatons who like others to speak for them and also pay them to do it!

i will continue to wait for a viable alternative to unionization , to be offered by anti union contributors , but from the evidence of past request for these i don't expect a viable response .

[GQGomer]

Well, as it stands now, without unions for nurses, nurses have no job security, put up with LOTS of crap, and also since most nurses work for privately-owned entities, no gubment bennies (such as guaranteed retirement pension after 20 yrs - 401k that most private workers have is good as only a tax shelter). Yep, nurses just get stuck paying the taxes to pay for all those gubby workers and their pensions and other bennies.

[Chico David, BSN, RN]

Well, as it stands now, without unions for nurses, nurses have no job security, put up with LOTS of crap, and also since most nurses work for privately-owned entities, no gubment bennies (such as guaranteed retirement pension after 20 yrs - 401k that most private workers have is good as only a tax shelter). Yep, nurses just get stuck paying the taxes to pay for all those gubby workers and their pensions and other bennies.

I just want to offer an alternative point of view here on public sector workers.

Here's a link to an article reporting a brand new study on public sector compensation.

Public workers highly paid? Not exactly

The gist of it: That when education levels and total compensation are figured into the picture, public workers are compensated about the same as private sector workers.

But there's a larger point: The big business folks - the Chamber of Commerce and the big banks and the Meg Whitmans of the world have a vision for the future. That vision is a world where no worker has any job security, no worker has any health care security, no worker has any retirement security. It's a world where unions have been squashed and where every working family is kept so deep in debt that they live in fear - and the fear keeps them very obedient on the job. It's a world where American workers have to compete with workers in India and Kenya and Vietnam to see who will do the job for the lowest pay. And they've made big progress in getting to where they want to go. They've drastically cut union membership, they've de-coupled wages from productivity, tripled the share of national income that goes to the wealthiest one-percent.

A big part of their strategy in reaching their perfect world is to turn workers against each other. They really want you to believe that if you aren't doing as well as you used to, you should blame some other worker for it. Or someone even poorer than you - don't blame the hedge fund managers who wrecked the economy, don't blame the CEO who makes 400 times the salary of the average worker, don't blame the politicians of both parties who enable them all. Oh no mustn't blame them - that would be "class warfare". Instead, we should blame the poor single mom on welfare, or immigrants trying to survive, or hard working cops and firefighters and teachers.

The only way we are going to turn this around is for workers to learn to stand together and support each other and start placing the blame where it belongs: on the people with the power, the people with the money, the people who make millions for shuffling paper while people who do the real work sink deeper into poverty.

end of rant.

[lindarn]

I have believed for a long time, that if nurses were to shift their employment status from employee, to Independant Contractor, like doctors and PT has, it would solve many of the inequities. When one works as an Independant Contractor, you write a contract that covers pay, working conditions, benefits, etc. If they decide to fire you, then they pay your contract for the remaining time left. Just like foot ball and baseball players.

Even the playing field.

JMHO and my NY $0.02.

Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN

Somewhere in the PACNW

[nicurn001]

lindarn would you then have the servies of an agent as those sportsmen do to negotiate your contract ( thereby removing you from direct negotiations and into the camp of someone [ the agent ] , who has a vested interest in you getting better pay and conditions , as it will reflect upon their own compensation ; negotiating on an individual basis ( with little or no knowledge of any one elses contract , which would probably lead to a race to the bottom pay wise ; or would the services of an agency be used to creat a pool of nurses working / negotiating together to formulate an agred upon contract to cover them all ?.

In some ways your idea has merit , but , I believe that management would be able to use ths model as a means to divide nurses and thereby drive their pay and conditions down .

[Kuryakyn]

I will continue to wait for a viable alternative to unionization , to be offered by anti union contributors , but from the evidence of past request for these I don't expect a viable response .

Why didn't I need a union??? Because I wouldn't want to keep working for an employer who would treat their employees that way. I don't want some entity to come in and "try" to force their cooperation especially if I'm having to pay for the service. I moved myself and my family and now work in a great institution free of any union. As far as clinical ladders and loyalty go, those are concepts that protect the lazy from losing their jobs. I personally prefer performance based raises. A nurse shouldn't get a raise simply because they stayed in their current position for another year! I get education reimbursement without a union and always have, so I don't see the need there either. If being union means paying to work, possibility of striking, senority based system, having my dues support political parties, no thanks, I'll pass. With regard to a viable option to unions, just say no! You all are so blinded by union rhetoric that you can't seem to see any other way of making change other than to pay soem organization to try and do it for you. If unions were as great as they are portrayed here, there would be far more nurses in unions than we have currently........

[herring_RN, ASN, BSN]

i'm glad patients at our hospital have nurses who organized for safe staffing and patient advocacy.

the managers who cut 50% of the rns and pharmacists replacing them with unlicensed personnel have gone away.

the 30+ year rns and younger nurses welcomed into our family do all we can to provide the safe, effective patient care we became nurses to provide.

we have a patient care committee to improve patient care. nursing management responds to recommendations of the committee in writing. they are unlikely to put in writing any illegal policies.

and in california acute care hospitals if it is unsafe it is also illegal thanks to cna sponsored legislation tens of thousands of nurses worked for 12 years to achieve.

[nicurn001]

Thought I would give the ANTI Union crowd a while to formulate a response to my request for them to come up with a viable alternate course of action , other than changeing jobs to an employer such as the Washington one referenced earlier , but the silence from them is very illuminating , perhaps they have NO solution , other than turning tail and fleeing a bad employer , while continuing to say that nurses should not join unions , because nurses are all strong enough to face up individually to their employers. Seems to me that if nurses don't join unions the anti's are saying follow our example and keep running from bad employers till you hopefully find a good one at the end of a rainbow .

Kuryakyn , your last response on this thread was simply an iteration of the reasons you do not wish to join a union , thats OK , but it in no way answerred the question of how to change a bad employers actions through individual actions , rather than in the security of a collective bargaining agreement ( contract that defines the behaviour the employer is accountable to).

[ominous]

but it in no way answerred the question of how to change a bad employers actions through individual actions , rather than in the security of a collective bargaining agreement ( contract that defines the behaviour the employer is accountable to).

i have no desire to try and change the way an institution behaves if it cant be done through shared governanace and individual action. the contracts you speak of really have no teeth in that contract negotiations can go for long periods of time with no considerable result. you can bet that i would rather be anywhere than with an employer that treats me in a substandard way. there's always another hospital. that's the great thing about healthcare, an abundance of jobs.

[nicurn001]

i have no desire to try and change the way an institution behaves if it cant be done through shared governanace and individual action. the contracts you speak of really have no teeth in that contract negotiations can go for long periods of time with no considerable result. you can bet that i would rather be anywhere than with an employer that treats me in a substandard way. there's always another hospital. that's the great thing about healthcare, an abundance of jobs.

so the only answer offered as an alternative to unionization , is turn tail and flee a bad employee ?!,where is the individual strenght so often referenced by anti unionist as a reason for not needing to vote in a union ?.

the contract certainly has more teeth in it than individual action or self governance commitee( which when they get too stong/independent for managements liking , get closed down [ as happened at our facility]).

contracts may take a time to negotiate ( that gives the lie to neutrality agreements being created because management wants the nurses to join a union , if that was so a contract would readily be accepted by that self same management !), but once in place and used by the nurses at the facility, form a framework management is accountable to .for example by using the contract , to enforce labor laws we have break nurses to cover us at all breaks ( it became more expensive for the hospital to pay the nurses for missed breaks ( who were filling ado's / grievances re. missed breaks) than to cover the breaks with nursing staff .

there is not always an alternate employer nearby ( think rural areas ),also it may not be possible to move to those alternate employers ( you may have to try to sell your home , at a loss in this present economic climate )and you may well be bailing from one bad employer to another ( you may check out the future employer , think it good , but when you work there find you or it is a bad fit ).

[ominous]

I, I feel that it is a better option than unionizing my hospital. Unions may have their place in the world but it shouldn't be in healthcare. I'm sorry but there is always an option. As a fellow healthcare worker, I would rather leave a hospital to find work than be involved in a union. I'm very glad to live in a RTW state where union dues will never be mandatory and neither will joining the union. I know, I know, its right to work for less state. But guess what, this is where i live and have many colleagues who feel the same way