Big pay cut at Orlando Health, please help your fellow Nurses

Nurses Activism

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Please help your fellow Nurses in Orlando they are desperate. Orlando Health has spit in the face of Nursing. Please help them by signing a petition to stop this huge pay cut at change.org http://www.change.org/petitions/orlando-health-stop-nightshift-differential-cuts-to-nurses

"Orlando Health announced Monday, August 5 that they will be cutting the night and weekend shift differential to thousands of employees, across 8 area hospitals, to go in effect September 8. These cuts are more than 50% of the current rate and will result to each an individual loss upwards of $600/month, $7000-$15,000/year. A majority of the employees affected are Nurses, who are already notoriously underpaid and overworked. Corporate members are denying any request for negotiations, and gave less than 1-month notice for employees to acclimate to this substantial financial blow. The Orlando health corporation decided they want to decrease pay significantly, with no decrease in employee workload."

PLEASE! Your help is desperately needed.

Pay cuts are on hold for a month.

Orlando Health postpones pay cuts | News 13

They need to be careful. Such drastic, sweeping cuts certainly opens the doors for the unions.

and the nurses better stick to it, and not back off.

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Specializes in OB / ED / ICU.

Administration has already informed us they would fire anyone who calls in sick during the first week.

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Specializes in OB / ED / ICU.

I really hate when people compare their shift diff with what we were getting almost as if it was ok to cut us. We were hired at this rate and many of us (myself included) have been at this rate for over 15 years. If that were the night shift diff at the outset none of us would be complaining about it, because it would have been the pay we agreed to initially.

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Specializes in OB / ED / ICU.
I can't get into the mindset of nurses here who are fine with the hatchet coming down on the pay of their fellow nurses, but say nothing about the multi-million dolllar salaries of managers. You can't tell me their CEO, who is currently earning $2.2 million/year, couldn't live just as happily on $500,000. Why is it when a hosp. is having financial problems, it's always nurses and low wage employees like housekeeping who have to suffer.

You are exactly right, and why only night shift? If they truly wanted to save money they could have cut every employee a few percent instead of taking it all away from night shift. I work for the system, but not ORMC. Winnie Palmer Hospital is one of the busiest OB hospitals in the nation, there are many specialized nurses in both OB and NICU there. We have been pressured by management over the last years to go back to school to get our BSN's. Many of us not only have BSN's we have national certification as well.

So for me personally in one week, I got my BSN, my hospital was awarded magnet status, the whole hospital was in the top 10% for customer service for another quarter, and my pay was dropped to what I make 10 years ago. Now people say oh just leave, well those of us who got money for our schooling just had to sign new 2 year agreements for tuition reimbursement. Interesting that it went from one year to two years right before the pay cuts!! So unless we want to pay back all of our tuition within 30 days of leaving, we are stuck there !!!

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I am so very happy to see that this thread has created so much banter among us nurses. I have to agree with curious_rn, there are many factors that contribute to the overall dissatisfaction of the night shift workers. Many of the nurses also have spouses that work for the organization and some are losing 20-40k in household income, others have had spouses laid off. So for the individuals that are saying just take the cut and be happy, OH is still laying off workers. Also many workers are affected, the 2nd shift in housekeeping totally lost their shift diff and hours cut. It is very painful to know that the organization got Magnet status due to the hard work of many nurses, continues to buy or partner with primary care physician groups and spends millions in VP salaries as well as new construction.....yet they choose to balance the budget on the backs on the night shift crew!

just my 2cents

have a good day all

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Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.
Administration has already informed us they would fire anyone who calls in sick during the first week.

Labor laws prevent firing when presented with a doctors note.

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Yeah, my buddy is in one of those contracts for taking a class there. Like, he agreed to work there because of the wages and benefits and in order to work there, he had to take this class and sign a contract to take the class, otherwise, he couldn't stay there on that particular unit and so he did. Then they changed the wages and benefits. Nice. Isn't that a bait and switch?

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
You are exactly right, and why only night shift? If they truly wanted to save money they could have cut every employee a few percent instead of taking it all away from night shift. I work for the system, but not ORMC. Winnie Palmer Hospital is one of the busiest OB hospitals in the nation, there are many specialized nurses in both OB and NICU there. We have been pressured by management over the last years to go back to school to get our BSN's. Many of us not only have BSN's we have national certification as well.

So for me personally in one week, I got my BSN, my hospital was awarded magnet status, the whole hospital was in the top 10% for customer service for another quarter, and my pay was dropped to what I make 10 years ago. Now people say oh just leave, well those of us who got money for our schooling just had to sign new 2 year agreements for tuition reimbursement. Interesting that it went from one year to two years right before the pay cuts!! So unless we want to pay back all of our tuition within 30 days of leaving, we are stuck there !!!

That is wrong, wrong, wrong. You're right, if there must be pain, then the pain should be shared by everyone, not just one shift. I hope you can get this settled; this is disgraceful. How can they have Magnet status when they're treating their staff in such a treacherous manner?

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
I am so very happy to see that this thread has created so much banter among us nurses. I have to agree with curious_rn, there are many factors that contribute to the overall dissatisfaction of the night shift workers. Many of the nurses also have spouses that work for the organization and some are losing 20-40k in household income, others have had spouses laid off. So for the individuals that are saying just take the cut and be happy, OH is still laying off workers. Also many workers are affected, the 2nd shift in housekeeping totally lost their shift diff and hours cut. It is very painful to know that the organization got Magnet status due to the hard work of many nurses, continues to buy or partner with primary care physician groups and spends millions in VP salaries as well as new construction.....yet they choose to balance the budget on the backs on the night shift crew!

just my 2cents

have a good day all

Personally, I think Magnet is a joke. It's a marketing tool to make the public think it's something special.

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I say the pain shouldn't be on the backs of lower wage workers at all. It seems this is only happening because the upper folks don't want to sacrifice their salary/security as a result of overestimating the costs for their new building expansion and new medicare cost structure (of which I have yet to research further to support this debate). WTH? They are saying that other hospitals are not doing this now and will be in the future - that's a scare tactic. So, like all nurses need to accept their working conditions now based on this nebulous "things are gonna get worse" for all hospitals in the near future? Why is Florida Hospital throwing out all kinds of job fairs and online ads for jobs during this scene. Again, how can any employer pay someone who is responsible for another human beings health as well as carry out orders for MD's that affects these patient's health and pay and treat them like they work at a restaurant? How? Seriously? And I understand that the MD's are going through overworkload too. It's ridiculous. Hold these insurance companies and hospitals accountable. You know what?, Have hospitals create their own insurance policies. Prepay by the community.

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They can do this, because you are not unionized, and have NO contract that guarantees anything. You need to call NNOC IMMEDIATELY, AND START A UNION DRIVE, AND VOTE THE UNION IN. YOU NEED TO DO THIS ASAP, SO THE HOSPITAL KNOWS THAT YOU ARE DOING IT BECAUSE OF WHAT THEY ARE DOING TO YOU!!

And don't back down, because they will make all sorts of wonderful promises, give back (temporarily), the wages that were cut, and if you do not vote in the union, the next day, everything will be back to the way it was. You all have to stay strong.

Call the NNOC, get a group together, write a Letter to the Editor, stating how the employees helped them get Magnet Status, Best Hospital Blah Blah Blah, and now that they have gotten their national accolades, they are royally sticking it to their employees up the you know where.

I would also go public and tell the public what they are doing. Large posters, with nurses holding them in front of the hospital. Make sure that you include how much the hospital spent on the constructions, remodeling, how much the CEO makes, how much executive secretaries make, etc. Also include how much money the hospital has made, most of it thanks to the employees, who made patients want to come back there for future hospitalizations. NURSES make good returning patients, not administrators.

Nothing makes adminstrators cringe, than bad publicity. NURSES made the, "Most Trusted Profession", not administrators! Spare me the sob stories, etc. The only thing what will make positive changes is to UNIONIZE and take control of your profession.

Don't fall for their, "Shared Governance", speal. Shared Governance, is s joke. Nothing but an, "attaboy", and throw you some crumbs to make you think that you have a say in you workplace. It is meant to distract you from the fact that, as we say in Brooklyn, "you got screwed, and didn't get kissed".

JMHO and my NY $0.02

Somewhere in the PACNW

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Specializes in OB / ED / ICU.
Yeah, my buddy is in one of those contracts for taking a class there. Like, he agreed to work there because of the wages and benefits and in order to work there, he had to take this class and sign a contract to take the class, otherwise, he couldn't stay there on that particular unit and so he did. Then they changed the wages and benefits. Nice. Isn't that a bait and switch?

Exactly !! I am only on the hook for one year for my BSN. When they changed the agreement to two year commitment I refused to sign and just paid for the rest of the classes myself. I have never been so glad I didn't do something in my life! I am still required to be there until January though.

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