[NurseDianne]

I read somewhere on here about nursing strikes and nursing unions. My husband also said he saw something about nursing unions in the south. Well, first of all, I've never heard of one here in the south. (not that means alot ). And if so where? The other thing, when nurses strike, doesn't that constitute as patient abandoment? How do they get around it? I'm not judging anyone, just curious. Does it work? Does it help w/ bennies and pay?

[fergus51]

I am in Canada and each province has a nurses union. Nurses can not practice here unless they join. When we have a strike it is usually after job actions in which we refuse to do OT or non-nursing duties and hasn't happened here in my province, in years. In the event of a strike we maintain mandatory staffing levels for emergency and urgent cases only. You would be surprised at how a hospital slows down when ALL of its elective and non-urgent cases are not treated. So, it's effective in putting pressure on admin, but emergencies are still treated. Our pay is pretty good IMHO, but there are those that would disagree with me. Benes are really good if you qualify. Unfortunately our new Premier took away our right to strike with new legislation and is butchering our health care system to the point that I have decided to go back to the US next spring.

[AlaskaKat]

In my opinion nursing unions are a necessary force in maintaining good staffing and for retention of good nurses. Yes, they work, because they make administration give nurses a contract so they can not just make decisions that impact patient care without asking! Most nurses that support unions support them for far more than just better pay and bennies, things like a nursing voice in committees and governing bodies. In a contract they cover these types of issues as well as financial ones. As far as strikes go, they are generally few and far between, and are only done with good reason and with notice. Nurses don't just not show up one day. They give the hospital at least 10 days notice (required by law) and that gives them time to a) cancel any non emergent surgeries/procedures, and b) hire temporary staff to fill in (very expensive). In my experience, just the serious threat of a strike makes administration come up with all sorts of solutions to previously unanswerable questions (and gee, we're not quite as broke as we thought we were too).

[Heather333]

I work at a hospital in Florida and we do have a union. It is newly developed and still has a lot of kinks to work out. It's nice having some kind of backup.

Heather