Right now, 15,000 nurses in Minnesota, part of MNA, spanning 16 (?) hospitals, are on a 3-day strike. It's the largest nursing strike in US history.
Staffing plans for this strike include utilizing nursing leaders as "helpers" and paying exorbitant amounts to travel nurses to fill in (on a FB L&D nursing group I'm in, I saw one agency offering $10,000 for five 12-hour shifts at one hospital in a northern suburb of Minneapolis).
As a nursing leader, it was requested that I sign up for a shift at one of the hospitals that is affiliated with the clinic where I work. I opted not to sign up, as I do not want to cross the picket line, and I am in solidarity with the nurses who are striking.
Ironically, my son came down with appendicitis yesterday morning, and I had to cross the picket line anyway, as we brought him in to the local ED and he had emergency surgery yesterday afternoon (they had to transport him to the children's hospital in the neighboring city because the children's hospital in the city where we originally brought him was closed except the ED, due to the strike). He got great care and is now home resting. Quite the ethical dilemma and moral crisis, depending on, and grateful to, the "scab" nurses (can I say that here?) that I disdained a week ago!
In case anyone was wondering, the major requests of the nurses is a 30% pay increase over the next 3 years, and having direct say and a vote in individual units' staffing plans. As in, 51% of the nurses in a unit must approve the staffing ratios of that unit. I think that is VERY reasonable.
The first picture was taken from the cafeteria at the Children's hospital in Minneapolis. The second picture was taken from the lobby at Regions in St. Paul, just because I've never seen such healthy dracaena before and I thought they were beautiful. ?
I am in NC and there has been some talk about nurses wanting to unionize. I got very frustrated because the system I work for has been bending over backwards to take care of us.
The points I was told: staffing. ICU is 1-2:1, Stepdown 2-3:1, mix of SD and int,. at the very most 4-5:1 (and the 5:1 is very rare). Other hospitals in the area might have 6-8:1 ratios. Governance. "nursing doesn't have a say" I personally am on 3 committees and 2 practice councils. I don't understand nurses that have practiced roughly a year demanding things that they don't even know about. Nursing is not ever going to be 3:1 ratios for an intermediate floor. There are issues, but the ones demanding change, are unrealistic. We already have amazing benefits, good pay, and great opportunities for growth or change; vertically and laterally.
I am a floor nurse that makes 6 figures. In the south. I grew up in the Chicago are and around the teamsters. Unions are not what they used to be. They are not always in our best interest.
I was also a teacher for a few years. That is an area that needs help. I made 2x as much $ with a 2 year nursing degree as I did with a masters in teaching. It is so wrong.
To the first bold - that is extremely dependent on where you work. My benefits are not good at all, and still I am lucky to have them over some that I have heard others describe on this website. My pay is fine, not outstanding but livable where I am, but that of my coworkers, particularly nursing techs, is not; we should have a voice we can use to advocate for others as well as ourselves. Opportunities for professional and personal growth (as allowed by use of PTO, etc.) are few and far between for me and my colleagues. I am fortunately able to move and seek other opportunities; many of my coworkers can't. Just because things may be good somewhere, doesn't mean that everyone else shouldn't make some noise about what they need.
Second bolded - you'll get no argument from me there. Teachers deserve improved working conditions and compensation as well! So do EMTs, firefighters, nursing techs, etc. These all need to be improved - it doesn't change that many nurses continue to work in unsafe, ineffective situations as well.
Specializes in orthopedic/trauma, Informatics, diabetes.
I agree that there are wide differences from hospital to hospital, my issue is that the ones complaining and wanting a union to "fix" things, are the ones working for a hospital that is one of the few that DOES treat their employees well. Their expectations are not realistic.
Strike must have been a stressor for you and son been transported to another facility- glad surgery went well. MNA is a strong union-- will be interesting to see outcome.
PA graduates more nurses than we need -- guess Illinois good place to look for employment.
Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.
16 hours ago, chare said:
People voting on a proposal, in my mind at least, means that all involved parties vote. What they are doing here is giving the staff the authority to kill any staffing plan that doesn't get 51% of the staff vote. This would give the unit staff the unilateral ability to kill any staffing ratio they don't approve of.
Leadership could kill any staffing plan too. The proposal does not take away hospital leadership's place at the table; it just gives the nurses a place as well. What this does is it allows the nurses to also have a say, and to agree to the staffing plan that leadership (and presumably nurse representatives from the individual units) come up with. It was this way at the hospital I was a manager at in Oregon, and it worked well. Empowering the floor nurses to have a voice in what their staffing ratios look like is a GOOD thing.
I am in NC and there has been some talk about nurses wanting to unionize. I got very frustrated because the system I work for has been bending over backwards to take care of us.
The points I was told: staffing.ICU is 1-2:1, Stepdown 2-3:1, mix of SD and int,. at the very most 4-5:1 (and the 5:1 is very rare). Other hospitals in the area might have 6-8:1 ratios. Governance. "nursing doesn't have a say" I personally am on 3 committees and 2 practice councils. I don't understand nurses that have practiced roughly a year demanding things that they don't even know about. Nursing is not ever going to be 3:1 ratios for an intermediate floor. There are issues, but the ones demanding change, are unrealistic. We already have amazing benefits, good pay, and great opportunities for growth or change; vertically and laterally.
I am a floor nurse that makes 6 figures. In the south. I grew up in the Chicago are and around the teamsters. Unions are not what they used to be. They are not always in our best interest.
I was also a teacher for a few years. That is an area that needs help. I made 2x as much $ with a 2 year nursing degree as I did with a masters in teaching. It is so wrong.
The bolded is why working outside of California terrifies me, baffles me and sounds so unsafe. And why do yall tolerate this constant putting your license in jeopardy?
The VA just gave nurses a 20 percent increase here. A new grad nurse here makes $26/hr. My son at 17 at McDonald's makes $17. So depending what their pay is it could be under what it needs to be.
The VA just gave nurses a 20 percent increase here. A new grad nurse here makes $26/hr. My son at 17 at McDonald's makes $17. So depending what their pay is it could be under what it needs to be.
My VA we got a 7% increase. $26/hr is horrible, especially for all the responsibilities put on a nurse.
Well, having driven through Illinois once to Champaign-Urbana, all I can remember is cornfields with the mighty U of Ill campus in the middle:) But I expected that rural community colleges might supply nursing graduates and wondering if they just don't want to work specifically where TraumaRU is or if they are going to other places in central Illinois. Rural recruiting is always a problem.
NightNerd, MSN, RN
1,130 Posts
To the first bold - that is extremely dependent on where you work. My benefits are not good at all, and still I am lucky to have them over some that I have heard others describe on this website. My pay is fine, not outstanding but livable where I am, but that of my coworkers, particularly nursing techs, is not; we should have a voice we can use to advocate for others as well as ourselves. Opportunities for professional and personal growth (as allowed by use of PTO, etc.) are few and far between for me and my colleagues. I am fortunately able to move and seek other opportunities; many of my coworkers can't. Just because things may be good somewhere, doesn't mean that everyone else shouldn't make some noise about what they need.
Second bolded - you'll get no argument from me there. Teachers deserve improved working conditions and compensation as well! So do EMTs, firefighters, nursing techs, etc. These all need to be improved - it doesn't change that many nurses continue to work in unsafe, ineffective situations as well.