florida unionized?? can it work?

There's a Union at a hospital here in St. Pete and they do nothing about staffing and ratios at that place.

But they are young and perhaps will get better in the future.

If there is nothing that your nurses have been able to accomplish in to fix the problems at your facility - give the union a chance to discuss the options.

Where I shop members of this local seem to like their union.
It is not a nurses union.- http://www.ufcw770.org/

They are the United Food and Commercial Workers:
http://www.ufcw.org/about_ufcw/who_we_are/

As previous poster mentioned, UFCW has historically been a union mainly for retail grocery workers. How much experience they have in representing nurses I can't say. A really good test is to ask to talk with some nurses they represent now, or for info about hospitals they represent. A fairly good little experiment is to ask for a list of hospitals they represent and just make some random calls to nurses stations there - not just one or two, but enough to be a reasonable sample.
I'm personally a fan of RN unions as opposed to unions that represent many different types of workers. Nurses, in our role as patient advocates have bargaining concerns that are not there for other workers. Unfortunately, your state nurses assn, as far as I know, does not do collective bargaining, so that limits your options.

Know that whatever union you elect to represent you, the success of a union is based on the active participation of its members. Your relationship with your union should not be like your phone company or insurance company, where you just pay a fee and get some service in return. It might be a little better compared to being part of a church - where your active participation is part of the deal. It's the only way unions win good contracts - get the members active and involved. The unions that do that best, are the most successful.

You're right, it's not always about the money. For years employers have taken advantage of the "good will" and "altruism" of professional nurses. Many have worked overtime and off the clock and do without meals and breaks to meet the needs of their patients when employers deliberately and consistently understaff. Historically in many facilities, when nurses stay overtime to finish their charting, or try to charge for a missed break they're insulted, counselled, and told they need better "time management skills." Advocacy in the form of confronting abusive workplace practices requires direct confrontation and documentation of these occurrences to eliminate administrative deniability. This prevents RNs from being blamed for a system/management problem.

Fatigue increases the risk of preventable errors and harm to patients. Patients deserve nurses who are able to think critically and act as advocates on their behalf. That's why an RN union is so important, to protect nurses from "at will" and "constructive discharge" employment practices. RNs have a unique professional and legal accountability for patient care. We need to have the ability to protect our practice, our license, and our patients; we have the duty to advocate in the exclusive interest of our patients, even when it is in conflict with our employer's bottom line management policies. Florida nurses are smart enough to realize joining with an all RN union, the National Nurses Organizing Committee, not only can work, it does work. Member led, member organized, and member mobilized on behalf of safer working conditions.
Nothing "crazy" about it: a collective professional association for patient advocacy!


http://www.calnurses.org/nnoc/

Here's my two cents re: questions to ask:
Does the union represent any other employees at your facility or is it just the RNs who are organizing? Are they seeking to represent nursing assistants and LPNs together with the RNs in the bargaining unit, or just the RNs? How is the board of directors for the union chosen? Are they democratically elected? Are they all direct care RNs? Is the dues money spent to represent the RNs' collective interests locally and nationally, as determined by the direct care RN Board of Directors?

When the RNs at the facility where I work were organizing, we really appreciated meeting other RNs who had been organized with the California Nurses Association/NNOC so we could learn first hand about the quality of the representation, the tools for collective advocacy and member mobilization, and the success stories of how nurses were able to solve problems and enforce safe staffing at the facility level. We had met with a couple of other unions in the past too and asked a lot of hard questions. For us the right choice was eminently clear.

Having an all RN bargaining unit and facility based union member representation is an important consideration. RNs have unique legal professional practice accountabilities for patient advocacy and safety. I've talked with some other RNs who are in mixed bargaining units and they've often expressed frustration with competing and conflicting interests--especially if they're "outnumbered" in a union that represents service workers and other paraprofessionals too.

Change can be good and you're taking a common sense approach by looking before you leap. Research and ask good questions. It's best to have a clear vision that includes short term and long term professional objectives. For instance, greater workplace control of nursing practice and effective patient advocacy to prevent nurses from quitting in despair was a short term goal for us. Being in an all RN union with strong member negotiated contract language is a great equalizer and brings justice to the grievance and discipline process. We can legally hold management's feet to the fire when we need to engage in "behavior modification," and get them to change workplace practices that are against the interests of patients. We don't have to fear unjust retaliation and discipline for doing the right thing on behalf of our patients when we seek to remove barriers to our ability to advocate for them.

Next, what is the union doing to solve the big picture problem, including writing laws and getting them passed to compel employers to provide additional staffing based on acuity, like California's RN to patient ratio law? Other NNOC member organizations in Texas, Massachussetts, Arizona, and Ohio--to name a few, have introduced and are working on passing similar pieces of advocacy legislation.

So, there are genuine changes that will help solve the problem, but you have to do your homework. Otherwise, change for change sake may leave you in the position of trying to "put the toothpaste back in the tube." Making the wrong choice as in, "change for change" sake is not good; you can waste valuable time, energy, and hope when you're trying to undo the damage. Choose wisely.

There are more unions in Florida than you might think. The UFCW represents all kinds of workers throughout the US, but in Florida they are mainly a health care union. They represent the RN's, LPN's and Techs at Lakeland Regional Medical Center, the RN's at Brandon Regional Hospital, some mental health hospitals, and bunches of nursing homes throughout the state. At LRMC, they have represented us for about 12 years. We interviewed several unions before deciding on the UFCW. When we organized our union, the hospital was trying to cut our wages, bonuses and weekend diffs, because they needed money to expand the hospital. I guess they thought we would just put up with it as usual. Believe me, we know all about the company freaking out, they hired 2 law firms trying to defeat us. Our wages, benefits, and bonuses have gone up since we organized. The UFCW has done a good job for us. We have a great union rep (a nurse from our hospital)that does a wonderful job. She meets with the company all the time to resolve our problems and is a great nurse advocate. I hope this helps with your decision. Let us know if we can be of any help.