Quick Q&A about this union business.

So I guess my question is I still have to pay even if I don't want to be a part of this?

No, you don't......
*see below

It's my money and no where (that I know of right now) have I signed to give the money I work for to anyone "just because I'm obligated"...

While entirely possible you never signed anything, hiring practices @ union hospitals generally don't keep that affiliation secret and I highly suspect you knew this to be the case. You didn't need to sign anything, accepting the employment offer is de facto agreement with the established labor standards already in existence.

I don't really feel that the union is for me and that I will and am not being benefited at this time nor in the future .

It's true that a union may not be 'for you'.
No problem, free country.
However, it's a tad disengenuous to suggest you not only can't forsee any potential benefit but also deny already enjoying many now. ( likely much higher compensation and standard workrule issues i.e., -equity in discipline/scheduling/staffing procedures, etc, etc.)
True, any hospital nurse in CA, union or no, derives benefit from the best staffing ratios in the nation on a daily basis. Most acknowledge union effort to establish and strengthen those mandates.


I just don't want to ask other's I work with and spread the word that I'm not paying this union.
Thanks RN.CH

With collective bargaining agreements with individual hospitals and chains of
health care facilities, nurses are improving patient care as well as their own economic
conditions. For instance, an agreement worked out in 2002 between CNA and Kaiser
Permanente, covering 10,200 registered nurses and nurse practitioners throughout

California – the largest single contract for nurses in the nation – includes a ban on
mandatory overtime, a guaranteed pension three times larger than the previous plan,
a retirement health plan, and a no-cancellation program covering regularly assigned
shifts, the first of its kind in the industry. The language on mandatory overtime was the
strongest in the country, and the union hopes it will set a national standard (Business
Wire 2002).
Also in California, a coalition of nurses’ unions in 1999 successfully lobbied
the state legislature to pass a law mandating nurse-to-patient ratios in hospitals.
Staffing legislation is now being pushed by unions in at least 13 other states (Clark
and Clark 2006).