Why is unionization a subject of taboo?? - Page 10

I don't know wage and hour law inside out or anything, but I am just sure that the staffing/pay practices you describe are in fact illegal. A phone call to the state department of labor might be a start or, if you live in one of the Southern states where the state government thinks workers have no rights, going to the US department of Labor might be worthwhile.
Here is a link:
U.S. Department of Labor - Wage and Hour Division (WHD) - Overtime Pay
You'll find a fair bit on info there on overtime and also how to contact them. This just sounds like absolute garbage to me.

I am fairly certain said practices are illegal as well. I had this conversation with them a few months back when I was informed that I would not be paid for the extra hour I worked on Nov 5th (the "fall back" night) because I was a "salaried, exempt employee". RNs can be considered "exempt" if they are paid on a salary basis and this is precisely WHY my employer came up with this backwards system. Mind you, if I ever work less than my 36 hrs/week, I get CHASED to make up those other hours and I "owe" them these hours. I pointed out to them in a "meeting" they asked me to attend that this does not happen with salaried employees because their hours don't matter/there's no such thing as "owing" hours and their response was basically "this is the way we do things here."

I have gone as far as to speak with an investigator at the Attorney General's office in my state who informed me that they could/would file a criminal complaint against my employer but that they couldn't protect my job. I do not have a union and am therefore an "at-will" employee. They can fire me because I have blue eyes if they feel like it. I don't particularly want to work for them anymore but I am stuck until at least September because of student loan obligations and I need a steady income and health insurance. Several of my colleagues and I have met with the nurses' union in our state... In my heart I just feel like if I leave because of their bs, I'm giving them the message that they can continue with it and force all those who disagree out the door and I strongly believe that one needs to fight for the change that one believes is necessary.

I really like your spirit. I have the strong impression - again, I'm not an expert - that there are rules on who can be classified as exempt and that staff nurses are not generally one of them. But it's a subject loaded with grey areas. Back in the 90s we got new corporate oriented, bottom-line oriented management at our place. Lots of things changed for the worse. Their constantly repeated mantra was "if you don't like it, so somewhere else". Some did, but some of us stayed and organized instead. Now we're still here and all that management team are gone - every last one of the top level people that forced us to unionize. Outlast 'em.

How depressing. I suppose as a newbie with an outsider viewpoint what's going on is as more people don't have insurance (read aren't getting profitable elective surgeries), as health care costs rise, and as fewer wage-earners are paying taxes (either because of job loss or a lower paying job), extensions of tax reductions on the big players, etc. CMS has to cut back given this large role of tax and of course the private insurers are happy to follow. I do believe many healthcare organizations are truly struggling and in these circumstances there has to be an accelerated, incentive based move to economies of scale which we see before us in the form of ARRA Hitech (Meaningful Use), consolidations and buyouts of large health networks on smaller ones, formerly independent practices aligning with hospitals and more.

I also believe that people who invest in their education and in being the best have a right to expect a return on that investment and reasonable working conditions...and that the patient (er, no, the "customer"!) has a right to safe, decent nursing care in an environment where s/he will not leave with a HA nosocomial present or otherwise an inoptimal outcome. After all, without all this what in the heck is the point? ("First, do no harm").

Unfortunately we live in a tough time where near all the courts in the country are rigged with anti-labor appointees from two terms of Reagan and three of Bush. Nonstop emotionally appealing talking points have convinced people (despite all evidence to the contrary) that their interests as wage-earners are the same as the uberwealthy and people are just too busy trying to survive to really invest the time and effort to cut through all the bull. Yet I sense ( as opposed to know) that many people DO know what's going on though but are really really afraid. You get punished, ridiculed and sometimes worse for sticking up for the working people in this country. Recently what was predominantly unemployed working Americans and educated college graduates unable to find jobs were dismissed by near the entire media as a bunch of "dirty hippies".

With devastatingly high unemployment for now a decade, people are really over the barrel. Nobody wants a low paying, back breaking job with poor working conditions but nobody wants their kids to go without dinner and a roof over their heads. Unfortunately it has in fact come down to that. Employers are ruthless in these times.

Maybe this is why some people feel they are re-fighting the same battles over and over and it's taking all they have to hold onto modest gains/improvements.


Incidentally other unions have also taken devastating losses, needless to say workers in Wisconsin and Ohio, from teachers to police officers but also including ALPA and some of the pilots union. I think it's easier for pilots because the idea of a horrific aviation accident resulting form unsafe conditions, tired pilots or unqualified ones is simpler for people to understand than how a substandard nurse could do something to give them a life-threatening infection.


So now that we've established the problem and many of the reasons for it ranging from big monied propoganda mills to the psychology of nurses, to an economy increasingly at odds with favorable labor negotiating, I suppose the million dollar question is what to do about it...


Anyway, just surfing and throwing in my own NY .02.


Enjoy!