[bbnurse]

It seems that you have major issues with your administration or at least some have had issues that the unions resolved for you.
Our local hospitals have always paid education time for inservices, costs of continuing education, provided competitive salaries and don't sit complacently on their posteriors looking down on us. We have input on the schedules, call and equal treatment. While occassional issues arise, the people in power do actually listen and attempt to resolve them. So, we see no reason for unions. We can negotiate our own needs. AND it all saves us (and the hospital) money. We can grow d/t constructive evaluations and praise. We know the hospital will survive .We have no need to send the unions money.
Nurses need more than a union to fix the issues. They need to be fully present in the moment and face the issues where they are, as the situations present themselves to us. We say we love mankind, yet we flip our finger at the driver who cuts in ahead of us, who does happen to be part of mankind. Where do we draw the line? We say things are wrong with our admin. or the way we are treated so we want the unions to fix it?? Isn't that short sighted and lazy?
I expect to take a big hit on these thoughts, but it is just my opinion that things have the potential to change but it is like the joke "How do you eat an elephant?".....one bite at a time. We can face and fix one issue at a time, wherever we are. It takes tenacity and determination but it must be done. I'd rather fight my own battles than depend on someone who has an alternative motive for their behaviors. I know what must change here, where I am. You know what must change where you are. Why let someone else send up the clammor and confuse the issues?? Why not fix your issue while I fix mine and the whole of nursing begins to heal itself? I think it is possible to do that.
No great oration here....just rambling philosophy...but thanks for reading my opinion. Make a difference where you are.

[-jt]

<Why let someone else send up the clammor and confuse the issues??>

What someone else? WE are the ones doing the talking.... the RNs at the facility.....together.... as one organization. The nurses at a unionized facility dont HAVE a union. They ARE a union.

You may have noticed lots of people posting that "the union" doesnt solve anybodys problems for them. Thats true. Its the NURSES who are their union and solve the problems for themselves....together.

They are active as a union representing themselves, and far from being lazy, unionized nurses are the ones getting things done - at their facility, at their state Capitol & in Washington DC.

I dont understand why so many people say that there is "someone else" doing the talking for us. The RNs are the ones at the negotiation tables & the labor/management committees. The union rep is the expert there to hold the law up behind us but its US bringing the issues forth & fixing things for ourselves.

Maybe other peoples perception of unions is different from what we actually experience with our professional nurses association & thats where their confusion comes from.

Its nice that there is a facility out there that lets its nurses have a say without being forced to do so by law. Magnet hospitals are like that but there are only a handful in the whole nation. Unfortunately, not many nurses get to be so lucky with their employers. Other nurses prefer not to leave it all up to luck & the good graces of their employer. They want to have everything that your employer lets you have - but they want it guaranteed in legally binding writing - and not dependent on what the employer decides to allow - because in business things change & what is allowed today may not be allowed tomorrow - unless its guaranteed in writing.

What happens when the co-operative employer leaves the facility or somebody decides that some things are too expensive now or the profit margin wasnt reached & they cease to allow certain items cutting them down or eliminating them altogether? It happens very very often. Just ask nurses in Kansas City right now for one example. But it cant happen if the nurses are a union because whatever they have is all guaranteed in writing. When the nurses arent a union, everything they have can just disappear on some administrators recommendation & theres not a legal leg the non-union nurses can stand on to stop it.

Thats the difference.

[cmrn]

JT you have a great insight on unions and present the information well (ie nurses are not in a union, they are the union). Too many expect to pay dues (money) and have someone else take care of the problems. There are very few problems in life you can throw money at and get desirable results. You have to be willing to stand up and take an active part in your representation or it will fail and you will blame the union as being bad. It is only as strong as its weakest link ( and I don't mean the game show!) i know this is a run of cliches' but they are all applicable. The salaries here in Houston just began their upward climb with the nursing shortage. When one hospital nearly doubled the hourly rate to woo nurses away others had to respond in kind in an effort to keep what they had or to be able to replace what they were loosing. Along the same line, the nurse who works along sie of me didn't get a raise this year, in spite of the fact that she held the MDS office together through some very difficult times, because she is in a FLEX agreement and that group doesn't necessarily receive raises just because it is evaluation time and the evaluation was asbove average. This is one of the injustices I see and abhor. We all work for a living and need to be rewarded for our hard work.
Cathy

[-jt]

Thank you.

Just wondering - what is a FLEX arrangement and why did it prevent that nurse from receiving an increase the same as the other nurses? Is she considered management, or is she a staff nurse who is being shown that she is somehow less valuable than the other staff nurses? Such is the atrocity of the "merit system" for determining salaries. In the past, NYSNA Nurses in NY struck for weeks to keep it out of here & they succeeded. We still have no such thing as a "merit system" determining our salaries.


Everytime I read one of those posts where people write their impressions of what "The Union" is, how "The Union" pushes its way in to take over, & how the staff doesnt want a "third party speaking for" them, I have to wonder where in the world they got these ideas of what a union of Nurses does & also why they consider the nurses to be a "third party outsider" at their own facility.

I get the impression that some people have a mental image of "The Union" as this outside agency with some big bad guys in suits, chomping cigars, wearing fedoras, driving Cadillacs, with an interest only in the roll of 100s in their pockets... and maybe even being in cahoots with the employer. Ok, maybe some unions did have a history like that or we wouldnt have all those mob movies from the '40s but they were not Nurses.

I have never ever seen a professional association that is made up of Nurses & represents Nurses be anything like this image.

Id be glad to help people with their perception of what a union of NURSES is & I extend this invitation:

Any nurse who is planning a visit to NYC (and lots of people are doing that right now specfically to see Ground Zero), turn right from there & walk east - up Wall St - to the NYSNA Collective Bargaining Union Headquarters opposite the South Street Seaport. Theyll be happy to give you a tour, show you around, what theyre working on, what has been accomplished, what the nurses of that union are doing. Everything you want to know about being a union of nurses in a nurses professional organization. Theyll probably even give you lots of information to take home as a souvenir. If any nurse ever finds herself in the Albany area upstate, do the same at the associations main NY State Nurses Association headquaters there - what our executive director likes to call "The House That RNs Built".

And Ill guarantee you wont find any brass knuckles in either place.

Just mostly strong, outspoken RNs - and their fearless leader (executive director) - an RN from Georgia! (Believe it!! the incredible, highly successful, champion-model RN association, the NY State Nurses Association, is directed by a pro-union Southern Nurse from Georgia!!! Who woulda guessed, huh? )

Back Downtown in Manhattan, you could take a short walk in any direction & visit union nurses of this association at their workplaces (this city's direct-care RNs are 99.9999999% unionized). They'll be very proud to show you what theyve done as a union.

And Ill bet not one of them smokes a cigar.

Then stroll over the Brooklyn Bridge & come visit me!

Sit in on a grievance or observe our labor/management meeting that month. But dont be disappointed cause there wont be any fat guy in a fedora at the table - its just the 6 of us RNs elected by our colleagues to represent them at our facility, any other staff RN who wants to attend, another RN who is a labor specialist/rep from our headquarters on Wall St - and the entire upper level of our facility's nursing administration.

But not a roll of 100 $$ bills in the bunch!

[cmrn]

I absolutely LOVE your description of what most people probably think of in reference to the word "UNION". It seems to spark fear in most sensible people. I understand the misconception because back in the early 60's my soon to be father-in-law was approached by "THE UNION" at their warehouse in San Antonio to spearhead the movement. When he declined, he had a few "Accidents" and ultimately joined. These tricks are a thing of the past, yes even in the South! Unions are invited into a business to assist the employees not badger or injure them. The movie persona does not exist for the most part. As I said in a previous post, my ex-husband was the president of the OCAW local for many years. I ate with, traveled with, and visited with the execs of this union and they were there to assist the membership to have their voices heard and protect them from wrongful punishment and termination. They may not be the be all to end all but in this area it is a necessity.
To answer your question, FLEX is a part time employee, 32 hours per week or less, who is paid more hourly (ha, ha) because they opt out of benefits (insurance, retirement, 403B, paid holidays, paid vacation, etc). When she told me that she received no raise I was livid. I wanted to take it up a level, but she declined. I have since been approached about becoming the DON of this unit and I am really having reservations about even interviewing. The system isn't a good one, I have been lucky to work for some really great directors so I'm not hurting. But, I know many who are.

[wildtime88]

bbnurse,

I like your words. I wish I would have said something like that.

[donmurray]

BB, you would rather fight your own battles, and doubt others' motives in fighting with/for you , but how much better will your odds on winning the battle be if you are part of an organised group of nurses, with similar aims to your own? One UK union (a rival to my own) ran a campaign on TV, whre a bear is sitting in an ant's path. The ant says"Excuse me!" and the bear swats it. Next thing, the bear is surrounded by ants, deafened by their all shouting "EXCUSE ME!!" Guess what? He moves over!

[nurs4kids]

the ants don't have to belong to a union, though
bb,
wonderfully said.

don,
those ants could congregate WITHOUT having a union represent them; without their money padding someone else's pocket.

I believe the ants here are in with the elephants. If I represent myself, I KNOW WHO I'M REPRESENTING! moi

[scobiesue]

The hospital I work in voted in a union(UAW Local 12) over 1 year ago. The progress has been slow. The hospital has really fought us tooth and nail. Our wages and benefits have greatly increased. But we still have alot of the same old problems: Staffing and patient ratios. But at least we now have some say even if its not what we want to hear. We now have a process that lets our concerns be heard. As I have learned over the past year a union is what I and my peers make of it. My work would like us to believe the union is a waste of time that we could work our difference out. This is all mgmt propaganda we will never be equals. If we were able to work out our differences and not belittled into working long shifts in poor working conditions the union wouldn't have been an issue. So in closing I am proud to be a union member. Solidarity Forever.

[nurs4kids]

Originally posted by scobiesue
But at least we now have some say even if its not what we want to hear.

lol..and that's different from non-union how???