Print And Share

by -jt

Look at the demands this hospital is making on its nurses. Then it wonders why it has to use so many temporary agency nurses because no will work there. And it has the audacity to want GIVE BACKS from the staff nurses its lucky enough to still have. You have to wonder if they even want nurses to continue working there at all.
Theres only 2 reasons why they would slap their staff RNs in the face like this - Either they havent heard of the nursing shortage or they just dont care about it.....

supply & demand? Supply & demand supply & demand supply & demand...............

When will they all get it thru their thick profit driven heads?

<<<<For Immediate Release

Franklin Hospital RNs Say: “No more delays!”

Picketing Wednesday to protest givebacks, slow negotiations
(see Images from Informational Picketing, 5 June, 2002)
http://www.NYSNA.org

VALLEY STREAM, LI, NY - June 3, 2002 – Registered nurses at Franklin Hospital Medical Center want a contract, not the run-around. The RNs elected the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) their collective bargaining representative on August 3, 2001. But management wouldn’t begin talks for their first contract until late that December.

Now, more than five months later, the nurses are still seeking a solution to the many problems that have made working conditions difficult and the hospital itself an unattractive employer. Yet hospital management keeps delaying negotiations and making the sessions they do manage to have unproductive.

Out of frustration, the nurses will conduct a session of informational picketing from 5:30 to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, June 5 in front of the hospital at 900 Franklin Avenue.

The 250 RNs are fighting for better staffing. In order to meet its minimum staffing needs, the hospital has been relying heavily on temporary employment agencies — which costs more than maintaining a full time staff. To draw more nurses to the hospital and encourage veterans to stay, the nurses are seeking to improve salaries.

NYSNA estimates Franklin nurses earn about 8% less than RNs at neighboring hospitals, and have not had a raise in almost a year. But the salary proposals on the table so far will not even come close to making up this difference.

Before hospital management will begin to discuss either of these issues, they are demanding the nurses GIVE BACK half of the time in their sick-leave banks and accept a longer work week. “When you consider the additional hours we’d work with the low salary increase the hospital is offering,” CNP Chair Kathleen Ruscito said, “some of us would see an insignificant increase in pay while others would even lose money. Is that fair?”

NYSNA is the professional association for registered nurses in New York with more than 34,000 members statewide. A multipurpose organization, NYSNA fosters high standards of nursing education and practice and works to advance the profession through legislative activity and collective bargaining. NYSNA is a constituent of the American Nurses Association (ANA) and its labor arm, the United American Nurses (UAN), which is an affiliate of the AFL-CIO.>>>>>>>

[ocankhe]

-jt
This is not about logic or supply and demand. Its about allowing the RNs to have power. The suits still don't want to give up or share power with a bunch of menial task (empty that laundry hamper) performing women.

[-jt]

EXACTLY Oramar! Thats why this is a manufactured shortage. This kind of administrator BS is whats manufacturing it. There is no "bidding war" for nurses going on. Theyre still doing the same sh** even in the midst of all this focus on the shortage of bedside nurses. ******* amazing! If hospitals wanted nurses to take their vacant positions & keep working there, they would not be behaving like this one is. And then crying that they cant find nurses??? And THEN telling the news reporters how much they "value" nurses?????? Ha. I feel like laughing in their faces everytime they lament about hard it is to "find" nurses. They keep up this crap & theyre going to find it not only hard but pretty damn impossible.

Sorry , my Brooklyn is showing, but I really could throttle these people right now.

[-jt]

deep breath....... ok......

the thing here is that if these nurses were not unionized, whatever give backs the hospital wants would already be a done deal. "Sorry charlie, we're taking back your accrued sick time & you get no raises either". BUT the good thing is that these nurses are unionized & can put a stop to this. The thing that galls me is the hypocracy of the employers who say "oh woe is me I cant find nurses" - at the same time theyre pulling stunts like this & forcing RN strikes to stop it.
(Well, Mr administrator, why the hell do you think you cant find nurses......idiot.)
Who are they kidding anyway? Its obvious that these people dont want to find nurses. What better excuse to just hire less expensive UAPs to provide the care & be done with it?

[ocankhe]

Someday these suits will realize NO NURSES...NO HOSPITAL.
Lets see no hospital, no job. Somehow the suits don't get it.

[nightingale]

I wish Wyoming had a union!

B.

[eltrip]

Tennessee, too.

[teamrn]

Ocankhe,

Again, how right I think you are; the suit don't get it; only I feel they choose not to get it, as it serves them well NOT to get it. However, there will come a day when it will bite them in the butt. They have their share of combined degrees and transferrable skills, so can go from hospital administrator to administrator.

We RNs have transferrable skills too, but many of us chose not to leave the field completely; patient care is what I love about nursing, but the rigors have become too much for this stressed out 50 year old bod. Because many of us share my desire NOT to leave nursing completely, but to improv it so we can stay, the suits feel that maybe, this is a time that they can 'eek' out a bit more juice from us. "It's a good business move", say they. Well, I say, "pay me now, or pay me later!"

Nightingale: I was in Wyoming, loved it's serenity and felt serenity all over again from your short post. However, I'm not convinced unions are the answer.

[colleen10]

[b]

[colleen10]

[b]give up or share power with a bunch of menial task (empty that laundry hamper) performing women.


You know what everybody? I think in all of the discussions there have been on the nursing shortage, the suits and the stuff that hosp. administrators pull, this is the first time I have seen (or maybe just noticed) a remark about sex discrimination.

Just made me wonder, how many of you feel that this is a major contributing factor to the problems that nurses face in the workplace?

The old me would have said it has nothing to do with it but a few years in the real world have taught me that workplace discrimination against women is alive and well; even in newer "progressive fields" like technology.

Interested in hearing your thoughts and experiences.

Colleen