Unions: What's the big deal

Unions benefit the worthless employees the most. They make it difficuilt to fire the slackers. It's all about the money with unions don;t let union nurses try and say it's about patient care it's about the bottom dollar. I worked at a kaiser facility and there was trash on the floor, the aide for the ICU slept all night and all the nurses constantly talked about was working a double so the could get double time after 12 hours. All this talk on here about we have unions for patient safety is just talk.

Here we have 2 bodies that represent/govern nursing, the Nursing Union and Association of RN's. The union helps protect nurses against unfair treatment by management, helps set up pensions and benefits and bargain for fair wages. The association helps ensure nurses are competent, disciplined when needed and advocate for patient's. Both groups work together. However, I have found that the union is made up of RN's that still work at the bedside or did for many years. The Association. on the other hand, is comprised of management nurses. Almost all nurses in our province belong to the same union (different locals of the union). These two bodies do a good job of advocating for nurses and patients. Sure, we all became nurses to "take care of people," but I'm not so naive to think that we are all martyrs and do this out of the "goodness of our hearts". I'm not Mother Teresa, I'm a professional with a university degree and I deserve to be compensated and treated fairly! My union does that well!

I assume you mean the ANA?
Actually, it is the BON that does most of this.
While some associations do control the NCLEX exam, for example, to control minimal standards for entry into the profession, it is the state BON's that discipline nurses through their mandate to protect the public.
The ANA has been a major diasappointment for the profession of nursing.
The 1993 Safe Staffing Initiative is only one example of this failure. Here we are, 16 years later, and the staffing ratio issue is still a major issue for direct care RN's. Only one state has ratios in place for ICU's, and they have been in place since 1975.
Only one state has ratio laws passed.

You are quite correct in noting that the ANA is largely comprised of nurse administrators, and the equally ineffective academics (in terms of protecting direct car RN's). These groups are too caught up in their self image as "professionals" and "executives". They are too aligned with the interests of the AHA.

If WE want anything done, it is up to US to do it.

Again, join the NNOC and let's get this ball rolling.
As SherlocK Holmes would say, "The game is afoot."

No actually I don't... I'm from Canada