Stage set for Temple University Hospital strike by PASNAP

K98 · Oct 1, 2009

This sounds pretty much the same as the situation at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh. The RNs at AGH are represented by the SEIU instead of PASNAP. The system offered 2% per year with significant givebacks by the RNs in scheduling, health insurance, and vacation. The nursing shortage is over (for now), so the hospitals are beating on the RNs again.

lindarn · Oct 16, 2009

An agency is looking for nurses to work this strike. They are offering $50 an hour. Just because the "nursing shortage", is over, does not mean that nurses need to bend over and take it! Fight back!

JMHO and my NY $0.02.

Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN

Spokane, Washington

lindarn · Oct 16, 2009

Here is the Strike Ad!

TravelMax is seeking Pennsylvania Licensed BMT and Dialysis RNs to provide temporary coverage at a large hospital in Philadelphia for a potential strike. We are interested in speaking with nurses committed to continuing to provide services to patients in the event of a work stoppage on or around October 30, 2009.
Bone Marrow Transplant - Chemo Certified - Pay: $50 per hour
Proof of ONS Course Required at a minimum
Competencies must be maintained
Dialysis RN - Pay: $50 per hour
BLS, Inpatient Dialysis only, including ICU. Need acute care dialysis experience.
Hemodialysis machines: Will be using 11 Baxter Althin System 1000 and 5 Fresenius 2008K Systems
CVVH: Will be using 4 Gambro PrismaFlex
Portable water treatment system: MarCor SemperPure
6 days/wk, 12 hour shifts
In return for your quick response, we are offering interested candidates:
$50 /hr pay rate
24 hour gaurantee for pay once travel commences
Paid 4 star, secured hotel accomodations
Free meals at the facility
Free Travel & Transportation with airport transfers (if necessary)
One or two day orientation given before strike commences
Estimated start date on or around October 30th, 2009
If you are interested or want to ask more questions about this opportunity, reply to this message
We will pay you a $500 referral thank you for each qualified nurse you send us that starts on this assisgnment.

What do you all think about this? I think that it stinks!

Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN

Spokane, Washington

nicurn001 · Oct 16, 2009

It stinks but the odor will attrackt the flies . They will find whatever justification they can to stab their fellow nurses in the back to gain $$$'s .

Nurses areour own worst enemies , we eat our own , spit out the pieces and then justify our actions , when in reality ,like our employers it's all about the money

vprice · Nov 9, 2009

Its not really all about the money! It also has to do with the fact that there is still going to be patients to be cared for while the nurses and Temple work out their indifferences. I personnally love to travel and I've nursed for 26 years, so I see this as an opportunity to see a new place, meet new people, take care of your patients and be paid to do it. It's not that I don't agree with why your striking, I know nursing is tough, we're all under paid and short staffed. But some one has to be there so you can maybe get what you want and need to return to work and feel like you have accomplished something. So go for it and Good Luck. I just wish alabama had a union for nurses.

Home Health Columnist / Guide · Nov 9, 2009

Updates:

Article | Inquirer posted 2009-10-31

Temple nurses say offer includes gag clause

..Bill Cruice, PASNAP's executive director, said about 150 union members picketed yesterday during a ribbon-cutting for Temple University's new medical school building.
He said the proposed gag clause was "not only illegal but morally reprehensible." The union cannot legally be forced to negotiate that issue, which the hospital included in its "last, best offer," Cruice said. According to the union, the proposal states: "The Association, its officers, agents, representatives and members shall not publicly criticize, ridicule or make any statement which disparages Temple, or any of its affiliates or any of their respective management officers or medical staff members." In the event of "defamation," the union would pay "damages" of $250,000.
Sandy Gomberg, the hospital's interim chief executive, said the union had "misrepresented" the intent of the "non-disparagement clause."
She said it was not meant to prevent an individual nurse from criticizing the hospital, but to keep union officials from harming the hospital's reputation. The hospital filed a defamation suit against the union in July regarding statements about Medicare funding.
"What we won't tolerate is the union, not our employees, making derogatory and defamatory statements about the hospital, individuals who work here, or the patient care we provide," she said. ...

Posted on Thu, Oct. 1, 2009

No strike at Temple

By DAVID GAMBACORTA

Philadelphia Daily News

Good news: About 1,500 Temple University Hospital nurses and staffers decided to postpone a three-day strike that was set to begin tomorrow over rocky contract negotiations.
Bad news: The already-sticky talks between nursing union officials and Temple University Health System brass seemed to grow more contentious yesterday. The Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP), which represents the nurses and staffers at Temple Hospital, announced that its members had rejected the Health System's proposal, 1,051 to 7.
...
Cruice said Temple officials are seeking to phase out a longtime tuition benefit for children of employees, substantially increase employees' health-care costs and implement "below par" wage increases. He added that union officials were angered when they obtained a financial report earlier this week that indicated that the Health System has made a profit this year of $7.1 million "despite blowing through $50 million in costs" connected to the June closure of Northeastern Hospital..
"Our nurses have the highest [wage] rates in the region, and they're asking for raises of 4 and 5 percent."
...

...no further news info posted nor @ PASNAP website re negotiations.

nicurn001 · Nov 11, 2009

Its not really all about the money! It also has to do with the fact that there is still going to be patients to be cared for while the nurses and Temple work out their indifferences. I personnally love to travel and I've nursed for 26 years, so I see this as an opportunity to see a new place, meet new people, take care of your patients and be paid to do it. It's not that I don't agree with why your striking, I know nursing is tough, we're all under paid and short staffed. But some one has to be there so you can maybe get what you want and need to return to work and feel like you have accomplished something. So go for it and Good Luck. I just wish alabama had a union for nurses.

Sorry , but if you want to travel , take up a regular travel assignment , were you may be paid less than as a strike breaker ,but if travel is honestly what you seek , wouldn't that be better than helping an employer break a strike ?. The arguement that someone has to do it ,has been used throughout history by those doing something others find reprehensible ( think abortionists or concentation camp guards etc.. ) and is the lamest arguement available .

Maybe if there was not such a ready supply of strike breakers , employers would concentrate more upon realistic negotiations and thereby negate the threat of a strike .

It all comes down to the higher pay a strike breaker is prepared to accept to betray there fellow nurses .

PICUPNP · Nov 20, 2009

So what you are saying, NICURN001, is that you would rather the patients suffer with no care at all than to have have a competent, seasoned nurse taking care of them? This is not back stabbing or betrayal. Nurses have chosen to abandon their patients for a raise or the fact that their families aren't going to have their tuition reimbursed at the local college, so let the patients suffer under the hand of workers without the experience to safely take care of them!(just examples)The poster who you so eloquently flamed for doing the right thing was only trying to say that she wasn't there just for the money but for the experience. I just don't think its appropriate to degrade someone for doing what they think is right. I don't agree with unions, but i don't go around being an ass about it.....

Onekidneynurse · Nov 21, 2009

So what you are saying, NICURN001, is that you would rather the patients suffer with no care at all than to have have a competent, seasoned nurse taking care of them? This is not back stabbing or betrayal. Nurses have chosen to abandon their patients for a raise or the fact that their families aren't going to have their tuition reimbursed at the local college, so let the patients suffer under the hand of workers without the experience to safely take care of them!(just examples)The poster who you so eloquently flamed for doing the right thing was only trying to say that she wasn't there just for the money but for the experience. I just don't think its appropriate to degrade someone for doing what they think is right. I don't agree with unions, but i don't go around being an ass about it.....

Actually, stikes help the striking nurses. The cost of strikers quickly uses up the employers insurance. And they really can't afford to be on strike too long.

Years ago we had some real short staffing. I don't remember the reasons, but we had to recruit case managers, and some higher ups back to staff nursing. They were useless. Some had never used a pump, primed tpn, they weren't signed off on doing blood sugars etc. They hadn't even used a pleura-vac. They weren't ACLS certified etc. A poor excuse for a replacement nurse. It wasn't their faults. They just weren't able to perform.

Onekidneynurse · Nov 21, 2009

It stinks but the odor will attrackt the flies . They will find whatever justification they can to stab their fellow nurses in the back to gain $$$'s .
Nurses areour own worst enemies , we eat our own , spit out the pieces and then justify our actions , when in reality ,like our employers it's all about the money

And what have you just done?

nicurn001 · Nov 21, 2009

It takes two to tango , so the decision to go on strike , is influenced by managements attitude to negotiations . Recently the management of CHW hospitals in CA , pushed ( by lack of real negotiations ) the nurses almost put on strike , but at the last moment the management backed down , because of a combination of the threat of the strike and the looming deadline of paying somewhere in the region of $12 million for strike breakers .

The use of strikes in my personal preference , is that they should not occur , but the reality of negotiations is that , without being able to threaten a strike , employers would usually ignore their employees desires .

As to the strike breakers their motivation is $$$'s . In some cases strike breakers are doing so , where the union is trying to get safe staffing instituted , so how can that action have any other effect than prolonging the patients suffering from poor care, due to inadequate staffing .

I don't think either side involved in a strike can claim the moral high ground , because I agree the patients are the ones put at risk . I simply don't accept that the fault lies solely on the side of the nurses who feel the only course left open to them is to vote for a strike , while the managment is acting in the best interest of the patients by allowing the circumstances to develop , that their stef fell striking is justified .