Hospitals may be struck on June 2

Has any one heard any thing about the strike.

Fastaff has already started spamming me about it. I hate them so much I can't even express it. What part of "I don't have a NJ lisence, I don't want to work strikes, I have a job I like now, and I don't want to work for Fastaff ever" is ambiguous?

They are looking for SCABS!

There is no such thing as a 'scab' in nursing. That is so blue-collar. And yet, the same PEOPLE that advocate that nursing can be brought up to a 'professional' level with unions resort to such UNPROFESSIONAL characterizations.

Nursing is different than most jobs. It's not about being a 'scab'; it's about pt care. Scab or no, paying someone 7-10 grand/week to be a replacement worker is JUST as crippling to a hospital, if not more so. Simply put, replacing RNs, even temporarily, is NOT the same thing as replacing assembly line workers.

I mean THIS is the face of professional nursing: scabs need to be picked off. . . if I get your drift? NO, I DON'T GET YOUR DRIFT. Are you advocating the murder of fellow nurses? Or maybe just a sound beating? How proletarian!

I'll take my non-union but civil relationship w/ management over that kind of grief any day. If I didn't already have a great non-union job, I'd gladly cross a picket line.

~faith,
Timothy.

I have worked in union and non-union hospitals. I have to say that working in a unionized hospital is MUCH better than non-unionized. Without a union management thinks they can walk all over the nurses! Look...we all have to decide what is best for each of us and most have families they need to support, and bills to pay. I don't know if a strike will happen or not but I cannot cross the picket line. I will work somewhere else if need be. I don't advocate harm to anyone, but freedom of speech. Just my 2 cents.

Over the last 3 yrs, my non-union hospital has increased some RN salaries as much as 20% (to avoid bracket creep, the biggest 'pop' was at the 2-5 yr experience range) but it was AT LEAST across the board by 11%. And those are 'market based adjustments' on top of the 3% annual raises.

It's been 5 yrs since I made less than 80k.

Ratios of 5-6/1 on the floors, 2/1 in Critical Care.

Good relationship with management. They have a philosophy that they are the sum of their employees.

Why on earth would I want a union to mess that up?

I'm not ANTI-union, per se. But it's just not true to say that unions are ALWAYS a better situation. There are advantages to 'voting with your feet'. I left a job for this one. If anything happens and I need to leave this job; well, that's WHY I became an RN: complete mobility.

Unions rob that mobility in that, the only real way to benefit from being in a union is through seniority. As such, unions WED you to management; not free you from them.

In truth: my 'right to work' employer could fire me tomorrow. But. But. But, they need 65 more nurses right now, which is par for the course in this part of Texas. Truly, there is more pressure to keep RNs and no incentive to run them off. It takes, on average, 68k to train and bring up a replacement RN. So, firing me tomorrow is a 68k decision. Can I be fired tomorrow? Yes, but not lightly. The flexibility of such a situation certainly is more mine and will be for some time to come.

~faith,
Timothy.

Timothy, that just isn't the case. I am free to vote with my feet just like you do and that's something unions use as pressure in bargaining time. I rarely stay at a job for more than 2 years because I like to move around (so far I've worked in 2 states and 2 provinces as a nurse) so seniority has nothing to do with why I prefer to work in a unionized facility.

I've always said unions are just a response to bad management, so I'm glad your management hasn't been silly enough to make its nurses want a union.