Schwartznegger on Hannity and Combs tonight..

SmilingBluEyes · Mar 13, 2005

Jeb needs to follow in his brothers shoes :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

which one????? Don't scare me now, Ted. :uhoh21:

SmilingBluEyes · Mar 13, 2005

That is exactly the way it will happen. Exactly. I have seen it happen over and over again. And to help administration out, there will be some rank-and-file nurses who will say, "well somebody has to do it" and "that's why we're here to work" and my fave, "some of ya'll are just lazy, we used to do this all the time".

Yep, We are seeing it right here. So you KNOW you are right, Sharon.

medsurgnurse, RN · Mar 13, 2005

That's why Southern nurses flock here (CA and OR) in DROVES when there is a strike---because their pay in the South is so lousy that they see a chance to reap a whole bunch of $$$$, real fast, and the hell with their brother and sister RNs who are out on the strike lines in those states. The hell with patient safety, too.
That's when they claim that they are here to "take care of the patients--" yet, the striking nurses are OUT on the strike line BECAUSE patient safety is suboptimal, as are working conditions. Witness the recent Sutter strike across Northern CA---when the CA RNs were out on the strike lines protesting Arnold trying to mess with our ratios. A huge influx of RNs from the South moved right in and crossed strike lines without batting their eyelashes.
Bottom line for those Southern RNs who'd cross state lines--even taking vacation time from their own JOBS-- to cross a strike line? Greed, greed, and more greed. It has NOTHING to do with patient safety.
I practice (dragonboating) across from The Marriott, where they put up strike company RNs when OHSU was on strike a few years ago. Sometimes before or after practice we'd go over to the Marriott for a beer. You would see those darkened buses--big, chartered buses---pull up and either pick up or unload strike nurses. Nearly all of them that we saw had deep, telltale Southern accents, and we all commented on it (and my teammates are not nurses, so they were unaware who all these people were, until I told them. When I told them what they were here to do, they were horrified and disgusted.) Their co-ordinators, or whatever they called them, herded them through the lobby like sheep, and they all chattered up a storm, including the co-ordinators, who ALSO had deep Southern accents. They were hard to miss or ignore.
Greed, greed, greed. If the South is so great without unions, why didn't they stay there and take care of their own patients? No, they'd rather capitalize on their opportunity to cross strike lines full of picketing UNION nurses who were the ones responsible for existing wages---often not high enough for OR or CA, but a fortune to those nurses who live in the South---in the first place.
I know an RN from KY who has been doing nothing BUT strike nursing since she got out of nursing school, at age 21, in 1995. Her boyfriend wants her to come home, get married and settle down and have a family--but the greed has gotten to her, too. She just can't seem to stop. It's really kind of sad, as she is not the same person I knew when I first met her, before she started doing strike nursing. U.S. Nursing destroyed her value system, then their clone Fastaff, and a long string of others since.

Thanks stevierae. I think I will just stay here and take care of my own patients. Do you really think all strike nurses come from the South. Its funny; I'm from the South, of all the places I've worked, all the organizations I participate in, and throughout the student body of my university, I've never met a RN who took part in strike travel nursing. I've met one nurse who said she went on a travel assignment once, but she wasn't from the South anyway. If you had ranted on about any other race or ethnic group they way you just did about Southerners, you would be flamed without end. You were correct about one thing, our pay is lousy, but the cost of living is less.

fergus51 · Mar 14, 2005

. I believe in mandatory staffing ratios, I think they are a necessity. I just think that there is better ways to go around it

If you could show me an example of where these better ways have been successful, I'd be all for it. No one can seem to do that though, so I'll happily support my union in achieving it. And being in a union isn't abdicating my responsibility to advocate for my patients by letting "someone else' do it. I do it, with other nurses who feel the same. None of us can do it alone.

allnurses Guide · Mar 14, 2005

If you could show me an example of where these better ways have been successful, I'd be all for it. No one can seem to do that though, so I'll happily support my union in achieving it. And being in a union isn't abdicating my responsibility to advocate for my patients by letting "someone else' do it. I do it, with other nurses who feel the same. None of us can do it alone.

We did it at my hospital before mandating came around. We looked at acuity and ratio.

Maybe the fact that we did have a union courting us had something to do with it even though we voted the union down resoundingly. Or maybe rural nursing is different. People up here are pretty self-reliant. Farmers, loggers, folks who grew up on the land. Not alot of union folks except for the teachers up here.

The hospital would be hard-pressed to find staff they could push around. :)

steph

fergus51 · Mar 14, 2005

But what's stopping them from changing those ratios tomorrow? Nursing shortages come and go and as soon as they have more nurses than they need, there is nothing making them keep those ratios. There is a big difference between hospitals being forced to maintain ratios forever and being willing to maintain them today. It's not statewide or even county wide and it only protects you, and what kind of consequences does the hospital face if it doesn't meet its own voluntary ratios? It's a bit like a fox guarding the henhouse.

allnurses Guide · Mar 14, 2005

But what's stopping them from changing those ratios tomorrow? Nursing shortages come and go and as soon as they have more nurses than they need, there is nothing making them keep those ratios. There is a big difference between hospitals being forced to maintain ratios forever and being willing to maintain them today. It's not statewide or even county wide and it only protects you, and what kind of consequences does the hospital face if it doesn't meet its own voluntary ratios? It's a bit like a fox guarding the henhouse.
I'm a pretty self reliant union member, but I also care about what happens to the nurse who is scared and more vulnerable to being pushed around. I don't want her to get thrown to the wolved just because she can be. I've seen it happen. Minimum ratios aren't important for a hospital like yours that is apparently very reasonable, if they are already meeting them. In those cases the ratios are irrelevant. The problem is what about the places that aren't? What about the places that can find nurses they can push around?

If my hospital tried to change things, we would have them over a barrel as there aren't exactly any other nurses they could hire except travelers and that would not be cost effective. Plus our DON is a great lady and a rapid nurse advocate.

I don't know what to say about nurses who don't stand up for themselves. There are people like that everywhere, in every profession. Do we need a union for every single person in the United States?

And all hospitals are not completely evil. They do have some points to make about costs and such.

What has always bothered me about this is the casting of hospitals in the evil corporate role and nurses in the angelic put-upon poor enslaved role.

Neither is true.

steph

fergus51 · Mar 14, 2005

If my hospital tried to change things, we would have them over a barrel as there aren't exactly any other nurses they could hire except travelers and that would not be cost effective. Plus our DON is a great lady and a rapid nurse advocate.
I don't know what to say about nurses who don't stand up for themselves. There are people like that everywhere, in every profession. Do we need a union for every single person in the United States?
And all hospitals are not completely evil. They do have some points to make about costs and such.
What has always bothered me about this is the casting of hospitals in the evil corporate role and nurses in the angelic put-upon poor enslaved role.
Neither is true.
steph

I have never castigated hospitals as all being evil or nurses as all being saints. Your hospital is obviously pretty reasonable. My problem with their voluntary ratios being compared to mandatory ratios is that they are voluntary and can change anytime. No one knows what tomorrow will bring. Your hospital could be sold to a different company. Your DON could be replaced by someone less reasonable. Your new hires could be less assertive. The nursing shortage could quickly become a nursing surplus. When I started nursing school, we had a surplus in Canada and nurses had to move to the US or UK to get work! That wasn't so long ago (early 90s). Immigration rules could change allowing an influx of nurses. My semirural upbringing taught me to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Any way you cut it, voluntary ratios just don't do that because they are voluntary.

Do all professions in the US need to be unionized? Of course not. Should all professions that require certain ratios or hours of work in order to save lives be mandated? Yes. They should. Your surgeon shouldn't be allowed to operate on people for 36 hours straight. Air plane pilots shouldn't be allowed to fly 40 hours without a nap. A nurse should not be allowed to look after 8 fresh post ops or 4 women in active labor. Unions aren't necessarily the only way to get ratios mandated by law that protect ALL nurses and patients, but NOTHING else has yet. No group of nurses has ever gotten together to do this. I applaud you and your colleagues for working out ratios at your facility, but that's no where near on the same level as mandating them in the state legislature.

allnurses Guide · Mar 14, 2005

I have never castigated hospitals as all being evil or nurses as all being saints. Your hospital is obviously pretty reasonable. My problem with their voluntary ratios being compared to mandatory ratios is that they are voluntary and can change anytime. No one knows what tomorrow will bring. Your hospital could be sold to a different company. Your DON could be replaced by someone less reasonable. Your new hires could be less assertive. The nursing shortage could quickly become a nursing surplus. When I started nursing school, we had a surplus in Canada and nurses had to move to the US or UK to get work! That wasn't so long ago (early 90s). Immigration rules could change allowing an influx of nurses. My semirural upbringing taught me to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Any way you cut it, voluntary ratios just don't do that because they are voluntary.
Do all professions in the US need to be unionized? Of course not. Should all professions that require certain ratios or hours of work in order to save lives be mandated? Yes. They should. Your surgeon shouldn't be allowed to operate on people for 36 hours straight. Air plane pilots shouldn't be allowed to fly 40 hours without a nap. A nurse should not be allowed to look after 8 fresh post ops or 4 women in active labor. Unions aren't necessarily the only way to get ratios mandated by law that protect ALL nurses and patients, but NOTHING else has yet. No group of nurses has ever gotten together to do this. I applaud you and your colleagues for working out ratios at your facility, but that's no where near on the same level as mandating them in the state legislature.

Specific to my hospital . . . there is no way things would change for the worse because there are no nurses here to replace us. :)

Of course that is unrealistic for the rest of the country and I completely get what you are saying.

Really. :)

Hey, I'm headed to the movies now (off topic :chuckle . .. gonna go see "Hitch" . . . have a good night now dear Fergus.

steph

fergus51 · Mar 14, 2005

Hope your movie is good! I have to go to work... sigh...

allnurses Guide · Mar 14, 2005

Hope your movie is good! I have to go to work... sigh...

I have 7 more days off!!

Not gloating . . sheesh my family is waiting for me . . .

steph :chuckle

fergus51 · Mar 14, 2005

I have 7 more days off!!
Not gloating . . sheesh my family is waiting for me . . .
steph :chuckle

:chuckle Well, after tonight I have 8 days off and a friend coming to visit... I am gloating, btw :chuckle I can't wait!!! My best friend and I haven't seen her in over a year, so we'll do all the touristy Disneyland stuff and have a blast :)