1500 RNs unionize! What do you think?

I think it is great news. The nurses need to reunite, and the CNA seems to be a union working to improve the nursing conditions. I am all for unions that move to change things versus unions that are just figureheads.

If I lived in L.A., I would have voted for the union.

I live in LA, I voted (No), started looking for another job on Friday night when the CNA got in. May be time to move on anyway, I hear we're in for a big earthquake any day

Good luck to those folks, but I have found CNA to be weak and ineffective in my experience, unwilling to stand up to management in any way other than periodic wage increases. In some ways it is better than having no union at all, but in other ways, not.

(And don't bother to suggest to me that if everyone paid them their high membership fees and gave them total support things would improve. You could say the very same thing about ANY organization in the world. They've had many years to stand up for nurses and haven't effectively done so. IMHO.)

I think this is great news! Haved worked for several hospitals in Southern California and will never work without a union again. CNA has protected our rights both on the individual level and as a collective.

Maybe health care unions are different. I was a teamster for five years. Alll they did was take my money. It was a joke.

renerian

Registered nurses at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center voted 695-627 Friday in favor of unionizing.>

I think the hospital will say that 1500 RNs did not unionize - 1500 RNs were dragged in by 695 who voted yes & 178 who didnt bother to vote at all. Less than half of the 1500 voted to be a union but almost just as many voted NOT to be a union. And 178 had no opinion either way & let the others make the decision for them. The union won by only 68 votes. That could be a problem because it doesnt show a cohesiveness of the nursing staff on the issue & the hospital can wreak havoc with that, using it against the RNs. Those 178 who didnt vote one way or the other could have made a big difference in clarifying the opinion of the majority either way if they had just spoken up with their ballots. The hospital is not going to let this go because if just 68 of those 178 non-voting nurses had come in to vote NO, the hospital would have won & there would be no union. They will take this vote to mean that they still have a fighting chance to remain union-free & are not going to give up on that so easily now.

I think the fact that the vote was not overwhelmingly in favor of unionizing & was extremely close will give the hospital confidence & opportunity to go after legally protesting the vote, calling for a re-count, filing an objection with the NLRB, &/or holding up recogniztion of the union indefinitely as it drags on its manuvering - propelled by the indication that there were so many who didnt want the union or didnt care if they had one or not. I dont think the hospital will just let it stand as is, like they would have had to do if the vote was more like 1300 in favor. I think they will fight it for however long they can - and keep the nurses in limbo.

If its an open shop & the 627 who voted no & the 178 who did not vote at all can work there & not be part of the union, the union wouldnt even have the majority of the RN staff on its side. The hospital can use that to further divide the RNs, weaken their voice, & the unions position in negotiations. If its a closed shop & every staff RN has to be in the union in order to work there, but more than half of those nurses didnt even want the union to begin with, there is still going to be the problem of lack of unity & support - plus resentment & RN against RN. So the mere fact that a union is in but less than half of the staff RNs supported it being there, doesnt necessarily mean improvements will be easily forthcoming anytime soon.

695 for - 627 against. Not good. Theres going to have to be a lot of work done to pull those RNs together & off each others throats.

The power comes from the unity of the staff nurses who work there. A vote like this does not show there is any overwhelming unity. The hospital is going to work with that to its best advantage. The union & union members are going to have work that much harder to be effective & are going to have to prove to the staff RNs that there is a benefit to becoming united. They can be successful but the RNs would have been starting off at a much better & more powerful vantage point if the vote had been more solidly for unionization & the hospital HAD to accept it without question.

Congratulations to the nurses for obtaining the legal right to make decisions that affect them in their workplace, their practice, their pts, and the conditions of their employment. But I dont expect the hospital is going to accept the union or make it easy for them, considering how close this vote was. I expect all the legal tricks in the book to start appearing to reverse or negate this vote. And I expect its going to be a while before the issue & a first contract is settled.

Originally posted by -jt

Registered nurses at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center voted 695-627 Friday in favor of unionizing.>

I think the hospital will say that 1500 RNs did not unionize - 1500 RNs were dragged in by 695 who voted yes & 178 who didnt bother to vote at all. Less than half of the 1500 voted to be a union but almost just as many voted NOT to be a union. And 178 had no opinion either way & let the others make the decision for them. The union won by only 68 votes. That could be a problem because it doesnt show a cohesiveness of the nursing staff on the issue & the hospital can wreak havoc with that, using it against the RNs.

You are correct -jt, the nursing staff is very divided on the union issue. The union was pushed by the foreign-trained nurses and younger nurses. It may become almost a racial issue in the future. (White/Black vs. Yellow, more experienced RN's vs. less experienced RN's) But after the 1st it will not be my problem or the problem of 8 of my co-workers. We resigned yesterday. Just time to move on. Very sad, it was the best hospital in LA.

Refreshing proof that new nurses are demanding to take the reigns on their conditions of employment right out of the starting gate. Theres hope for the future. At the St Catherines strike on Long Island, the nursing students boycotted the hospital with their instructors, walked the strike line & took clinicals elsewhere. Get used to it. Theyre graduating nurse activists now - no more door mats. And I believe those meek, mild, quiet Filipinas that so many people think will 'just do as they are told', say 'yes' to everything their employer wants to throw at them, and 'make no waves' actually spearheaded your union movement because Ive seen Filipina nurses in my city just as strong - in fact the elected president of my union is one.

If you dont want to be part of a union of nurses with a legally binding right to make the decisions that affect you in your workplace, that affect your practice & your conditions of employment, & if youd rather just wait for some employer to give you the things you need at work out of the goodness of his heart, & hope they last, you may eventually have to "move on" away from the bedside - because direct-care RNs are unionizing in record numbers all over the country to obtain the right to a voice in their workplace - including in Southern California.

In NYC, most hospitals were unionized by their RNs many decades ago. Very few are still non-union. When we move on to a new job, its a given that there is a union. One of the questions RNs ask at job interviews is "which union represents the nurses here". We expect the right to representation. Most will not work where there is none. The choice is not about a union vs non-union job, but rather which union we want to be part of - take a job at the facility where the RNs are represented by our states leading RN union - the professional RN state assoc union - or take a job at the facility where the RNs are represented by a healthcare workers trade union. If Southern California nurses do what NYC nurses chose to do decades ago, and you do not want to be a part of it, you will eventually run out of hospitals to move on to.

The whole point of being a union is to be standing together in unity. It doesnt sound like there is that at your facility yet. For the union to be effective, the nurses are going to have to come together or they may as well not even have one. Personally, I wouldnt want to be the union rep having to try to accomplish that in a hospital where so many didnt want to be unionized.

Good luck in your job search.

How can any Union claim to be able to solve staffing problems, or any problem, until they have an actual contract? And how can you solve staffing problems if nurses aren't applying???