[herring_RN]

Texas and area nurses consider pros and cons of unionization

...Money isn't the issue – it's the workload, says Rossia Avery, a registered nurse with a staffing agency in Dallas and chairwoman of the Dallas-Fort Worth National Nurses Organizing Committee, an arm of the CNA.

Local registered nurses already can make more than $38 an hour, which works out to just over $79,000 a year based on a 40-hour week, said Ms. Avery, a frequent speaker at rallies who says she does not get paid for her organizing efforts.

"They won't give us more help, but they'll give us more money," Ms. Avery, a nurse for 28 years, said of hospital executives. ...

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-NurseUnion_23bus.ART.State.Edition1.46643fc.html

[Chico David RN]

One could go on at some length about the linked article, which is worth a look at least. It's a pretty good example of how the corporate media subtly distorts the role of unions and the concerns of workers in general and nurses in particular.

I'll just focus on one point - how much it underplays the role of individual nurse activism in any organizing drive, and particularly in the long term effort in Texas. What built the conditions for the win at Cypress Fairbanks was a years long effort of nurses meeting together in small groups, building cohesion, building political consciousness, learning to trust themselves and each other. the article all makes it sound as if that win sprang from an agreement between management and the union. That made a difference in which hospital went first, but it was that ground level organizing that made it all possible.

[SandraHeartTeamRN]

Local hospital executives and nurse representatives, who are a part of the executive team, say unions will fracture the good-natured relationship between nurses and hospital managers as they work together on staffing issues

Who do they think they are kidding?? What good natured relationship???

A 2003 union vote in Longview, Texas, failed.

By 6 votes, and they had some meat packers/teamsters union. This time will be different, we welcome the CNA/NNOC

[HM2Viking]

Every member a steward

Every member an organizer.

I have yet to see a convincing argument on balance for RTW.