[wayunderpaid]

I know that this thread is about safety and nurses strikes, but the tangent re. BSN for entry in CA is really fascinating. I personally do not think it will happen. Been tried elsewhere and did not work.

BON's, legislators and desk-people who do not perform day-to-day patient care, and therefore lack understanding of current safety issues surrounding overworked and understaffed units have wonderful ideas that are nothing worth more than a cloud of colorful farts.

As an entry to practice with a BSN, I have nothing but the highest regard for ADN's and diploma nursing. I understand that the issue is about "professionalizing" nursing, like other careers, rather than safety and staffing. But curtailing a quick entry to practice will result in decreased patient safety. I would prefer the status quo, rather than this wonderful idea in paper, that we are professionals (Which we all know we are anyway, we oftentell the docs what to order, don't we?).

I sort of like the NY proposal to grant RN licenses to ADN for 10 years, so that they can attain BSN status in that time. I still have mixed feelings about it though, and of course, I have gone deeper on the tangent, and this proposal has been lingering in the NY legislature for months if not years, and not likely to surface again until after elections happen. Sorry, should have posted somewhere else...
Wayunderpaid

[pickledpepperRN]

The Association of California Nurse Leaders (ACNL) dues are paid by their employer.

That is the organization the chief nursing officers/vice presidents of patient care services/directors of nursing or whatever the title is belong to. The hire replacement nurses when there is a strike then lock out their nurses after the strike. I don't think they want to do this. Unfortunately the top nurse does not control the negotiations. I think if he or she did there would be no "last-best-final offer" and a refusal to negotiate with the nurses.

The article is already almost 7 years old.
The issue has not made it to the minutes of the Board of Registered Nursing (BRN). It is simply not possible until we create enough slots in entry leven BSN programs.

Anecdotally among the BSN RNs I know more than half earned their BSN after an associate degree. That is what I did too.
This issue has been on the agenda of the ANA for more than 40 years. They are spinning their wheels

[JaSuMi]

Originally Posted by leslymill

California is working hard to improve the nurses working environment. They have a goal to no longer hire or train any RN without a BSN by 2010.
That is three years.

Where did you hear of this goal? If that were the case, why are ADN programs opening up there enrollment all over the state? I believe this is the goal of ANA, not California, could I be mistaken?

[RNgonewild]

That article was written in 2001. I haven't heard anything else about it. How's about those "nurse leaders" becoming lower paid instructors and giving up their director's and manager positions and their other cushy hospital jobs, since they're the only ones with enough education to teach us?

[nservice]

As an employee of one of the hospitals where the nurses went on strike, I have mixed feelings regarding the strike. It hasn't been so long ago that I worked the floor that I've forgotten what it was like to work short staffed, or be bullied by a supervisor to take an admit that was too critical for the floor, etc. There are definitely issues that need to be resolved to protect the nurse and the patient.

On the other hand, I have personally witnessed a great deal of underhanded tactics used by the union that really turns me off to their cause. The fight has turned really ugly at my hospital and in my opinion, the Union has made for a hostile work environment. Union nurses won't assist a non-union nurse. Supervisors offices have been vandalized. Nasty flyers or comments on any flyer the hospital puts up, regardless of the topic of the flyer. Unfounded Unfair labor complaints being filed in droves as a means of coersion. Union reps rounding on the floors and making scenes at the nurses station when someone refuses to sign a petition.

Right or wrong, the unionization of a hospital causes a rift that may take years to heal. It's not a fun place to work, to say the least.