Why is unionization a subject of taboo??

Chiggysmom · Jan 25, 2012

Consider the possibility that the way things look to you in nursing might be the same way that other people's workplaces look to them and that the role of unions in bringing about a fairer power relationship would be the same in those places as it might be in nursing. I've believed all my life that the healthiest human relationships (parent and child excepted) are relationships between equals. Way back when I was still in high school and got my first real job, a thing occurred to me: A job is an exchange - my time and labor for my employer's money. So why is it that one side gets to set all the terms of the exchange? Except for a very few individuals with special skills in high demand, there can be no real "negotiation" between an individual employee and their employer. The employer tells you what the terms are and you can take it as is or go elsewhere. I prefer a more equal exchange in which I have some voice in the terms. And the only way I can have that is to act in concert with other workers.
Right now, my hospital is in bargaining for a new union contract - our contracts usually last about 3 years. We have a pretty generous night shift bonus, and management came to the table with a proposal to drastically reduce that - costing night shift workers maybe $2800 per year. If we weren't unionized they would have just done it and told us about it. But now it's a subject of bargaining and we've let them know real clearly that we won't accept it. All over the country, in non-union workplaces (and even some unionized ones) employers with very healthy bottom lines and plenty of money are using the weak economy as a chance to cut wages and benefits. It's only our union that lets us resist those cuts.

Can so relate to this! The hospital I work at has no union and I am certain they will NEVER even let a union get to first base because we are so oppressed and walked all over and they've been doing this to the nurses for years and getting away with it. We get a lousy $1.00 differential for nights! And yeh, you're right about your hospital just cutting the night shift differential drastically and then just telling you there's been a change in policy if it were not for the protection of the union. Policy changes so often at our facility it makes our heads spin and we are never offered any opportunity to add our input or challenge the decisions in any way. It's like working for a communist dictator. I'm always anxious (as are others), about what they will come up with next? It makes so many of us just want to completely get out of nursing all together and of course, many of us could never recommend nursing as a career!

Chiggysmom · Jan 25, 2012

Nurses aren't people, we are 'Servants of the Sick, Angles of Mercy and all the other stuff people call us. We do it for the 'Love of Mankind'. We care not for pay, we are above that. We are called by the gods. we have been to the Holy Mountain, put our hands on the Sacred Rock, as a lighting bolt comes down from the heavens, hits us right in the hind quarters, we shout "I AM A NURSE!" I better stop. I'm getting myself sick. No institution wants to deal with a union. Because they would loose their slaves. In spite of the 14th amendment, Master don't want to free us. They would have to hire more staff, pay overtime, give more benefits, descent working conditions, and treat us like Human Beings. That damn old German Karl Marx with his, "Workers of the World, Unite!" Now if you pardon me, I have to grab my cotton bag and head for the Ol' Plantation.

How right you are! We are nothing more than slave labor. We aren't treated any differently than the people that go down into the coal mines or those that work in the steel mills! We're just slaves of a different kind and instead of making money for the coal mines, we're making money for the hospitals!

Chiggysmom · Jan 25, 2012

OK how about this. Nurses by and large are more timid, they think of the patient before themselves. You see it on this board yourself. " my supervisor had me in tears, I fail my RN boards, the patients family reported me...what should I do" while these are real concerns, it shows loving people in crises. It doesn't show the mind set of truck drivers, steel workers, construction workers, Dock workers- people that are use to a ruff life. We,as nurses, are taught that we are professionals we don't do things that might put the patients in jeopardy like form unions and strike.

Hear, hear!!!

Chiggysmom · Jan 25, 2012

That is a mindset that starts and is reinforced in nursing school. You don't see PTs, OTs, STs, Pharmacists, with this demeaning mindset.

Nursing schools have let nurses down, and are more concerned about the PTB, that allow them to teach nurses, that the nurses that they are supposed to be teaching.

PTs, OTs, are taught business concepts in school, taught how to start a business, charge for their services, while nursings' professional practice is rolled into the room rate, housekeeping, and the complimentary roll of toilet paper.

Until nursing unionzes en masse, with the NNOC, and takes control of our profession, we will always be at the mercy of the, "Massas". I am sorry but that is what it is.

JMHO and my NY $0.02.
Lindarn, RN,BSN,CCRN
Somewhere in the PACNW

This is so-o right! This is just one of the things that is wrong with nursing but that would be a good start!

caroladybelle, BSN, RN · Jan 26, 2012

That is a mindset that starts and is reinforced in nursing school. You don't see PTs, OTs, STs, Pharmacists, with this demeaning mindset.
Nursing schools have let nurses down, and are more concerned about the PTB, that allow them to teach nurses, that the nurses that they are supposed to be teaching.
Until nursing unionzes en masse, with the NNOC, and takes control of our profession, we will always be at the mercy of the, "Massas". I am sorry but that is what it is.

And overblown statements like that above being spouted by those that want to require unionization of all of us.....are the exact reason that many of us refuse unionization and think poorly of those demanding us step to THEIR LINE.

From my experiences with unions, they are More the "Massas" than my employer ever has been .

nicurn001 · Jan 26, 2012

This is a wonderfull country and this thread / noticeboard reflects it .

There are some who would rather work on the plantation under a " Massa " , than work in a unionized enviroment , there are some who would rather wait for hell to freeze over than work in a non unionized facility , they are the extremes .

I believe the vast majority of us simply want to work somewhere were there is a balance of power between the employees and employers wherby each side respects the other ansd ensures their endevours enable continued sucess for all .

The employer though is the one who sets the tone of the reletionship between labor and management , if they treat their employees well , the employees will have no need / desire to seek unionization . If however the employer treats its employees badly they will turn to the course of ever tightening the screws of coercion / repression of their employees which will evetually lead to attempts to unionize by the employees or high turnover of staff .

Chico David, BSN, RN · Jan 27, 2012

Your experience is not atypical.
I, also, have worked at numerous union facilities, and the facility as well as the(predominantly union) staff were such that I never want to work a lifetime in a union facility. By the same token, my experience currently in Magnet facilities has been superior. My current employer, has some staff (support staff/nonnursing) that are unionized, and many are, to put it diplomatically, less than optimal employees.
I, too, am tired of the idea put out by many union supporters, that the union is all important, and that we who do not support unions, because we find them wrong or misguided in some of their stands, are evil minions of management. Or that Magnet is a problem, when it all depends on the facility, NOT the Magnet status.
We should be supportive of each other and our individual experiences, union and not union. Many of us will never support unions because of much of the baggage they carry (deadwood employees that can never be fired), and many others will never work a nonunion job (the union has my back, and protects me).
We need to stop slinging recriminations at each other, and work on cleaning up each of our houses, before expecting others to change to our ideas of right.
(though I suspect that will be like snow in Miami in July.

Everybody has their own opinion, but there is one of those knocks against unions - highlighted in the passage above - that I will challenge every time I see it because it is just flat false.

Here's the way a termination works in a union facility: (at least in the private sector - civil service in the public sector may be different)

Management decides they need to fire an employee and they do. No need to ask anyone's permission or hold any hearings. They just do it. The employee calls their union rep, the rep files a grievance. The rep and the employee meet with management representatives and state their case why the firing is unfair. Management, if they still believe the firing was right, denies the grievance. If the union still believes the firing was unfair and they have a good case, they file for arbitration. Depending on the details of a particular contract, an arbitration can take weeks to months to set up and get a hearing date. The arbitration hearing is held. It's basically a trial with a private judge paid by the two sides. Both sides get to make their case. (all this time the employee is still off work) The arbitrator judges whether there is "just cause" for the firing. If so, the firing is upheld, if not, the employess is ordered back to work - possibly with back pay for the time missed.

What is "just cause"? It basically means that the employees faults were serious enough to merit firing, that they were given adequate notice of how they were deficient and given an opportunity to correct it.

No employer has to get permission from the union to fire someone - they just do it and the union has to try to overturn it through this long and expensive process.

Bottom line: If a manager tells you they can't get rid of a poor worker "because of the union" they are really just saying they are too lazy and inept to do the process properly so it will stand up in an arbitration. That process isn't that hard. It's like the kind of documentation we all do every day.

Final thought: if you work in a non-union facility, do you know any workers there who don't do a good job and don't pull their weight? They have no protection there - what's stopping management from firing them? Who knows?

Raven Sierra, BSN, RN · Feb 1, 2012

I have to admit, this is one of the parts of nursing about which I am apprehensive.

When I was a teen, my mom (a BSN) went back to work in a right-to-work state. I heard horrible stories from her at work and watched her bite her nails, hoping the management wouldn't fire her for the most ridiculous reasons. She's a good nurse. But they treated her - and all the other RNs in the hospital - like crap because they (management) could. I saw it firsthand later.

I don't want to go through years of school and lots of expense to be fired at the whim of some manager on a power trip. Yes, I've seen it. Or to worry that I'll be threatened with firing because one patient didn't like the fact that his room wasn't filled with flowers on waking from surgery. Seriously.

But I have a deep distrust of unions. My brother-in-law was union for a long time (not in nursing). Some of the stories from his side were awful. The union's excesses, the union's support for candidates he hated (and he didn't know that he could opt out of contributing, if he even could), and the ever-increasing demands for even better pay, better benefits, etc., when they already had the best pay and benefits around. People with less than two years of college were making more and having better benefits than people with master's degrees in other fields. My BIL made more working part-time than my DH and I together, both working full time. We have degrees; he doesn't. I know there are deadwood employees everywhere, but it seemed that the union coddled them. I've also witnessed ridiculous complaints and demands by union people - again, not nursing unions, but still union. I grew up in a union state. Eventually, these unions demanded so much that the business went elsewhere...overseas, actually. And now once-thriving towns are ghost towns.

My concern is that the nursing unions would start well by requiring fair wages and safe working conditions, but that, eventually, they would be corrupted. The old phrase, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," comes to mind.

I am willing to keep an open mind, and I will admit to having virtually no interaction with nursing unions. So I am certainly willing to hear from pro-union people.

FlyingScot, RN · Feb 1, 2012

when i was a teen, my mom (a bsn) went back to work in a right-to-work state. i heard horrible stories from her at work and watched her bite her nails, hoping the management wouldn't fire her for the most ridiculous reasons.

just to clarify terminology here, a "right to work" state is one where a person does not have to belong to the union to work a job that has unionized employee.

your mom worked in an "employment at will" state which means the employer can fire anybody, at any time, for pretty much any reason. if they don't have a good one...they just make one up.

Raven Sierra, BSN, RN · Feb 1, 2012

Ok, thanks for that clarification. We were always told in the hospital's anti-union propaganda that it was a right-to-work state. But I do see the difference.

MN-Nurse, ASN, RN · Feb 4, 2012

Just to clarify terminology here, a "Right to Work" state is one where a person does not have to belong to the union to work a job that has unionized employee.
Your mom worked in an "Employment at Will" state which means the employer can fire anybody, at any time, for pretty much any reason. If they don't have a good one...they just make one up.

To further clarify, "Right to Work" laws are anti-union. Even in an "Employment at Will" state, an employer has to operate under the union contract agreement on discipline issues.

However, since "Right to Work" makes it harder to unionize, "Right to Work" can help facilitate the abuses mentioned.

AndyB · Mar 20, 2012

While I do not agree about unionizing unskilled labor, skilled medical jobs in the private industry should be unionized without a doubt. We are all looking primarily for patient safety and it is time to stop unsafe patient ratios.