Administrator's Salaries

wildtime88 · Jan 4, 2002

Actually this nurse was put on the opposite end by the union. Remember she is in management and can not belong to the union.

If there had been someway that she could have been included in a fight against the hospital, then it would have been a much different story.

This is a problem with the labor movement within the nursing profession. It draws battle lines that pit nurse against nurse and excludes the direct participation of other nurses that work at the same facility.

It is not a preapproved plan for raises. It is a preapproved amount that they are actually willing to relinquish. Nurses in administration are powerless to actually approve funds for raises and benefits. They can only distribute funds that have been actually released or approved by the baord, CEOs, CFOs, or corporation.

-jt · Jan 6, 2002

If there had been someway that she could have been included in a fight against the hospital, then it would have been a much different story.

This is a problem with the labor movement within the nursing profession. It draws battle lines that pit nurse against nurse and excludes the direct participation of other nurses that work at the same facility. >

It has nothing to do with pitting staff nurse against nurse manager and the fact that the nursing supervisor cannot belong to the staff nurses union is not something that is confined to the nursing profession. Its federal law. NO management personnel in any field or profession in this country can belong to the same union as the workers they supervise.

Think about it. That law makes sense.

wildtime88 · Jan 6, 2002

The law might make sense, but the whole concept does not if you are trying to unite nurses.

If the major focus with in nursing is to unite every nurse and to achieve optimum results, then the concept of a labor union that pits nurse against nurse and excludes other nurses who work in the same facility is counter productive under this arrangement.

Simply put, can't we do better for everyone with out segregating or putting up battlelines amoung ourselves? This is what a labor union in our profession actually does.

WashYaHands · Jan 6, 2002

I understand that management cannot belong to the union. What does not make sense to me is that as an administrator, especially a former staff nurse who worked up the ranks to administration, does not advocate for the nurses (union or non-union). Just because she cant be a member of the union does not mean she has to be put on the opposite side of the union and her nurses. Apparently I am either misunderstanding her position or this administator by virtue of her title has become a "yes man/woman" to the CEO.

You comment that the administrator is powerless. I disagree with that. How about having an administrator with the knowledge to crunch some numbers and demonstrate to the CEO the value of the nursing staff (in bu$ine$$ language). How about an administrator who has the intestinal fortitude to secure a place on the board meeting agenda and present to the CEO, CFO the cost savings of retaining satisfied staff and avoiding a strike. How about a administration leader who will meet the CEO on their turf and speak in their language....."Giving our staff a 5% raise in pay will cost us $xx. If our staff strikes it will cost us $xxxxx in strike breaker pay and we will still end up giving a 3% pay raise just to get our staff back. Factor in the negative publicity that the facility will receive and the cost of our HR department verifying the licenses of the strike breakers as well as replacing the striking nurses who will pursue other jobs with other hospitals because they are unhappy with their employment here..." How about an administrator who reviews incident reports and approaches the CEO with proof in hand that most med errors and adverse incidents are occuring during the hours that our nurses are working mandatory overtime. How about an Administrator who presents valid scientific research on the positive correlation between positive health outcomes of patients and a manageable nurse to patient ratio. Discuss with the CEO past research and regulation of airline pilots and truckers who are required by law to have limits on the number of hours they can work before they must stop and rest (to protect the safety of the public).

I'm not talking about unions here. I'm talking about administrators who are not afraid to challenge the CEO's in their own back yard. Leadership does not emerge from blind obedience to anyone, not even a CEO/CFO.

Linda

wildtime88 · Jan 6, 2002

Nurse managers and administrators do just this, but when it actually comes to implementation or adoption they are not the ones who have the authority to do so. All they can do is suggest.

During negotiations they can not reveal what management has talked about. Many have signed contracts that actually forbid this. It is also grounds for dismissal. They can not simply break confidentiality and then drop back to a staff nurse position either. You have to also remember that the union does not protect their position.

The main function of a labor union is to separate labor from management and to give labor a unified bargaining position.

-jt · Jan 7, 2002

I second that. And all the other great suggestions you had about how a nurse executive can support her staff and make a difference. Ours did again recently and agreed with the staffing ratios we proposed while the hospital adminsitration fought us. The nursing administration pressured the hospital administration to agree with our ratios because as nurses, they knew what was safe. They didnt feel they had to fight against us because we are separated & sit on opposite sides of the table. We're all still nurses. Our nursing management worked with us to come up with the ratios we set, giving us dept data & staffing/census/acuity details so we could make an informed decision on each unit and then we stood firm on our proposal for staffing ratios to hospital administration. And we got those staffing ratios into our contract.

Who said that the union of nurses at any facility has to automatically be against the nursing supervisors of their facility or vice versa? If thats the stand that some nurse managers like that one he mentions want to take, that is certainly their problem but it's not how we work as a union of nurses and nursing management. The whole idea of Labor/Management committees is for the nursing administration and the nurses to work together for solutions to the problems.

Who said our nursing executives have no power? At my facility, our VP of Nursing is on the second tier of the organizational chart - right under the COO & CFO and this is the same line as our VP of Medical Affairs - which affords her the same amount of power as he.

In one nasty labor battle we had, the new CEO was firing 2/3rds of our nursing managers - forcing each manager to take on responsibility for 3 units each where we previously had one for every unit. Saying he was going to put the power back into the MDs hands and put the nurses back where they belonged, he also fired all of our nursing dept directors & educators except for one to handle the JCAHO mandatories, fired our VP of Nursing, eliminated that position, & took our dept off the organizational chart - dividing us up & putting us under the control of the MDs in charge of the individual depts we work in. Totally decimating the nursing dept and eliminating nursing leadership at that hospital because we had a strong, pro-staff nurse Nursing Adminsitration (and probably because he didnt like that the VP of Nursing forced MDs to apologize to nurses whom they verbally abused).

Our managers and supervisors are not in our union but that didnt stop us staff nurses from fighting tooth & nail to get them back. After the VP of Nurses was fired, the Director of Nurses was told to lay off 50 nurses. She said no way in hell - its unsafe to spread the staff nurses that thinly. She was promptly escorted out the door by security. Fired. As word spread that day, the nurses organized a collective response by 9am & at 12noon we all walked out of the hospital for 15 minutes, the time allotted our morning break, leaving interns, residents and 1 or 2 RNs on each floor so that no pt was abandoned. Nothing in the HR manual that said we couldnt all take our break together, so.....

We had already tipped off the neighborhood to be out there at noon & community groups, elected officials, the newspaper, the firemen & cops with their sirens, along with some of our night shift nurses who came back just for this action, showed up to walk with us.

What a sight to see 250 RNs streaming down 11 flights of stairs

all in support of our nursing administration.... and walking right past the same very surprised security guards that had dragged our Director of Nurses out those doors earlier. It was a message the hospital very quickly figured out. We spent the 15 minutes interviewing with the newspaper & radio reporters about what was happening to the nursing dept inside the hospital and it was front page local news.

The hospital was shocked....... and so was the Board of Directors.

The hospital administration couldnt believe we were so supportive of our nursing administration & is probably still scratching their heads trying to figure out how we got such a massive response all together in just a few hours.

There were other issues involved in this battle & when it was all over soon after this event, our nursing dept was put back the way it was, our managers, educators, assistant directors were recalled, the VP position reinstituted, & the dept of nursing back on the organizational chart as its own entity - not under MDs control. No RNs were laid off....... but the new CEO was fired.

If we werent a union, we'd be working under the control of some MD, pushed back to the 1940's, and without a nursing administration today....... and that Hitler would still be there.

This is just one example of why no one can tell me union nurses and their managers MUST be at odds with each other. There are numerous other examples every month. We talk to each other at our L/M meetings, bring up issues, address problems, find the solutions and do it all together. Sometimes it does get heated and sometimes things take longer to fix than we would like but the point is we can do it & we do it together - not by fighting against each other.

Unless someone is there, experiencing it first hand, they cant possibly understand what its like to work side by side with your nursing dept leadership & as a strong union of nurses. But as you said, there doesnt need to be a union for nurse executives to support their staff in the ways you mentioned. We just dont see that happening too much except maybe in the few Magnet Hospitals. It doesnt happen in unionized hospitals either. If it was happening wide-spread, I doubt we would be in the situation we are in & having to fight so hard by ourselves. So whats wrong with them?

Are most nursing administrators "yes girls", with no backbone, doing whatever the top brass says and watching that they dont get dragged out by security themselves? Why DIDNT that nurse manager stand up for her staff?

-jt · Jan 7, 2002

Exactly. Thats the beauty of it.

But that does not mean that the 2 groups cannot or dont work together for the common good.

They do.

You want to see the administration & the union of nurses as adversaries because they are separate. The fact is they are not adversaries.

They are Partners.

Take it from somebody who speaks from experience & knows more about how we work than somebody who has never even been part of a nurses labor union.

Home Health Columnist / Guide · Jan 7, 2002

Beautifully said JT.

You are certainly enlightening those of us without union experience to how a nursing union SHOULD be performing.

It sounds like many nurses with your drive and passion for the profession are employed there....I know where to go if I get sick in NY now!

-jt · Jan 7, 2002

Thanks Karen. I dont know how other unions or even how other nurses unions perform. My comments are based on what I know about how our union performs. By "our union" I mean not only the NYSNA, but also the other 23 collective bargaining state associations that make up the UAN - same basic principles & similar procedures for all 100,000+ of us. But you are correct about NY nurses:

Thats why we're so big, strong, and successful as an organization and one that is geared to direct-care issues. Its the nurses.... their mentality, committment & willingness to get involved.

(we keep coming back to the same point, dont we?? LOL!)

Anyway, I really liked Linda's (WashYaHands) suggestions. That was enlightening. Now how do we get more of our nurse executives to stand up like that?

wildtime88 · Jan 7, 2002

Jt, how many times must I tell you that I have work and paid my dues within a labor union made up of registered nurses?

It does create an adversarial role between nurses and it also does create segregation.

It creates a division from regular staff nurses and those in mangament and administration.

So I guess all the grievences that are written because management did this or did not allow this is a way of showing love to one another? I guess having to have a union steward present to witness a meeting between a staff nurse and a nurse manager is a show of trust and respect?

donmurray · Jan 7, 2002

I need to say that your argument is obviously based on out-of- date impressions gained when you used to be a union member. I can confirm jt's comment that Unions today are about partnership with employers in working to benefit all parties to the agreement. That way, everybody wins.

wildtime88 · Jan 7, 2002

donmurray,

Maybe things are a bit different in England.

Here if everyone won and it was truly about a joint and mutual partnership, then there would be no reason to strike. Nor would there be a reason to threaten a strike the next time the contract came up. Actually there would be no reason for a union in the first place.