I wanted to post this question under the thread which contained the objection form (taking an assignment and filling out a form, aka Safe Harbor), but did not want to hijack their thread.
I want to know more about unions. Where I work, it is an "at will employer", meaning they may fire you with or without reason. Do unions protect you from this?
If anyone has any feedback, another question I have is this: Does anyone know if union based facilities have better retention of nurses?
Right now at work, there is a huge drop in morale, as administration stated to the nurses when corporate people were in , "When corporate is here, they are right. You are wrong. Shut your mouth." This came about after a condescending woman in a suit was watching me do my med pass and juggle an admit, then have one brought to my floor (without my knowledge). I simply stated to this woman, "Communication could be better here; If I'd known I had this other admit coming, this could be prevented." (referring to her negative comments and raising her voice about our attending being unprofessional and in a hurry and just 'horrid' to the patient caregiver).
Anyway, the long and short of it, I was given a final written warning, stating that if I break any company policy I am immediately terminated. Because, "You are NOT to talk to other people about our problems. You do NOT talk to corporate. You refer them to ME." ("me" is the administrator who cornered me in the kitchen).
I still have refused to sign the write-up. She says that what I did was unprofessional. (Umm...I didn't yell. I didn't REFUSE the assignment; I simply stated that advance notification would have been helpful). Imagine a woman and a man coming to you; man with huge wound on face standing in front of you. Woman starts asking you about how to treat it. (And you are in the middle of giving meds, and a new admit, and you wonder who these people are and why they are asking you medical advice).
And this condescending corporate individual (who I didn't know was corporate) informs you that this is a new admit to your hall, and stated in a loud voice, "Don't you tell me you didn't know about this admit. The person sitting right here in this chair---as she's tapping gruffly on the chair with her ink pen---took this message!"
Bottom line: I did NOT doing anything wrong. Well, I guess I did. I wasn't a good Stepford Nurse and cheerfully say, "Oh, so glad you are here. How may I help you?"
I didn't have a right to feel under pressure? They get angry with us for overtime, but two admits plus medicare charting on 17 people, and all the other redundant forms they need us to fill out before we leave....isn't that enough already?
I witnessed the administrator call our unit, get the social worker on the phone and, in front of all of us, instruct the maintenance man to "Shut up and quit complaining and just move these people" when we made several room changes and maintenance man was overwhelmed.
I'm not kidding here..."Shut up." "Shut your mouth." These are ver batim words we are told.
So the point of my vent is this: Would a union shelter/protect its employees from these bogus write-ups and mistreatment?
