Why are so many nurses against unions?

[Icunicenurse]

I really don't understand. I am a newish nurse that landed my "dream job" in the icu. My hospital is the biggest and best in the area and we are currently on a journey to magnet. I feel like I was lied to about how this would help nurses and we would be supported and taken care of.

In my icu we have a very high acuity. We are constantly short staffed and tripled. 1:1 for ccrt pts is advertised but never actually happens!

I have seen a patient self extubate during the holy interdisciplinary rounds due to that nurse being tripled and spread out across the unit. None of the bosses said any thing and just went on to round on the next patient.

The majority of our assistants will not help unless asked and it's like pulling teeth just to get them to help with a blood sugar check. Often they are sitting on their cellphones or just catching up on gossip. But since they have worked there a long time it is widely accepted by the staff.

We have are losing staff nurses left and right.

I have been talked down to by our surgeons and blatantly disrespected on more than one occasion for trying to help a patient but not enough to be considered abusive so that I could report it. Once, I calmly asked a doc to update the close family members of a dying patient at their request. Since a distant family had been updated, the doctor was visibly offended and proceeded to call my charge nurse and say "I got in her face" which was completely false. Luckily the charge was within ear shot and heard everything. This was swept under the rug.

During my new nurse orientation the nursing instructor preached against unions especially since we were going magnet and would have so many benefits.

I feel like a strong nurse union could solve many of our problems and help our patient care. But the majority of nurses I have talked to are completely against it. I can't understand this for the life of me.

Sadly, my dream job has turned to hell. I love my sick patients and family but sick of being overworked, tripled, never even getting a lunch break, all while being talked down to and humiliated by the Dr.s that see me as a stupid new nurse.

[LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN]

pmabraham said:

Because being in a union offers ZERO guarantees of anything being better. So you have less in your paycheck to support those who may not be doing a single thing to make things better. And if they help bad employees stay employed, then they take a part of your pay to make life worse.

Have you worked in a place with a properly functioning Union?

Because what you stated is a pure myth and fallacy...and I have worked in places with unions and that was NOT the case.

[herring_RN, ASN, BSN]

pmabraham said:

Because being in a union offers ZERO guarantees of anything being better. So you have less in your paycheck to support those who may not be doing a single thing to make things better. And if they help bad employees stay employed, then they take a part of your pay to make life worse.

If "bad" employees are kept it is due to incompetent management.

A union contract generally requires that discipline, including termination, be for "Just Cause".

The most extreme I read about in the paper was a hospital where employees were allowed to be late routinely because they traveled from another job. Also some took lunch breaks that took up almost half their shift:

Quote

... Some employees habitually fail to show up, logging weeks, even months, of unexcused absences each year. And those who do come to work often don't do their jobs, causing one consultant in 2002 to remark that they had "retired in place."

Others are distracted or impaired. County Civil Service Commission filings tell of staff members grabbing and clawingeach other's necks; inspection reports tell of patients literally dying of neglect.

Underfunding is a myth, but the squandering is real - LA Times

The most extreme example I've been told about was a nurse who wanted to fight a termination after he was caught with narcotics in his socks. His fellow nurses were there when he refused to stay when the count came up short, ran, and was stopped by security.

Because the union had to provide representation a rep attended the meeting and took notes as one after another witness reported the same.

The union refused to go to arbitration, he threatened to sue. He was given a list of attorneys because he was also reported to the board. He never sued.

I remember once I was asked to attend an arbitration at another facility. An RN had been terminated for rudeness.

The manager had written her up once before for refusing to care for a patient in ICU and and four others on her telemetry unit. She had fought that because she was not competent to work in ICU and because it was physically in another nearby unit.

Even though that nurse had prevailed the manager felt there had been progressive discipline.

The "rudeness" consisted of an accusation that she had been rude to a patient. The assignment sheet did not include that patient.

In report she was told the patient was discharged and just waiting for a ride. She was getting an admit from ER into that bed.

About 7:20 pm she saw the patient in a wheelchair in the hallway. The secretary said no one had been able to contact his family to take him home. The nurse called both phone numbers and left a message. She bought him dinner from the cafeteria because he was no longer in the computer. She helped him to the bathroom.

He then told the charge nurse who called the supervisor. She put her concern that her assignment was unsafe because her patient had no room and with him to care for she was assigned more patients than allowed by the ratio regulations. The supervisor said, "Do the best you can."

About 10:30 pm she noticed the patient was gone. The secretary told her, "The daughter came and got him."

She testified at the arbitration that she had told her manager that she had neither discharged the patient nor took him down to the car, but her manager accused her of lying.

Plus he was no her patient because he had already been discharged.

The daughter testified that the doctor had told her at 3:00 pm her father would stay another night. She went shopping. She didn't have a cell phone with her. When she got home she was surprised and angry with the message. She came to get her father and a nurse seemed to be in a hurry. She pushed him out to the car. That nurse was so rude she wouldn't answer any questions. After her father was in the car she asked, "Why is my father going home? The doctor told me tomorrow."

She said, "That rude nurse just kept saying, "OK, Bye."

When the union representative's turn came to question the daughter he said, "Do you know the name of the nurse?

daughter, "Yes it is *****." (the name of the terminated nurse)

Union rep, "Did you read her name tag?"

Daughter, "No ***** told me her name." (gave name of terminated nurse)

Union rep, "Would you recognize her if you see her?"

Daughter, "Yes I would. I looked at her face and asked her questions and she just said, "OK. Bye"

Union rep, "Is she here in this room?"

The daughter looked at all us women. She made eye contact with me and the six other women at the table and against the wall. Then she said, "No. She is not here."

The terminated RN began to cry. The arbitrator said, "I will reverse the termination. You will receive my written judgment in three days."

The RN was crying. She asked her manager, "Why do you hate me?"

The manager yelled, "Because you look like the woman my husband left me for."

That was the most exciting arbitration.

But although most are tedious and boring they are important sometimes when a nurse is terminated and there was no just cause.

[SororAKS, ADN, RN]

Yes. And how many nurses do we know in non unionized facilities that are blackballed and OTD (out the door) for things similar to that outlined above with no recourse? Way, way too many. I wish I were shocked at the above example where a nurse was about to be terminated BECAUSE HER MANAGER THOUGHT SHE LOOKED LIKE SOMEONE SHE HERSELF GOT LEFT FOR?

I mean COME ON. Think about this. Who does this kind of thing? No one in their right mind, yet the woman was a manager?

Unions do have flaws but at least there is some recourse, rather than none.

[iluvivt, BSN, RN]

Yes yes yes.....Go for a union. You will never have safe guaranteed staff/patient ratios unless your state passes a law stating what that would entail and force hospitals to comply. One effective way to get to that point is a strong union. Read about the California fight and the law and then go from there. Without a law hospitals will control the staffing to cut and maintain costs since nursing costs are such a great percentage of their labor costs.

Mandatory Nurse-Patient Ratios

National Campaign for Safe RN-to-Patient Staffing Ratios | National Nurses United

Impact of Nurse-to-Patient Ratios: Implications of the California Nurse Staffing Mandate for Other States - DPEAFLCIO

CALIFORNIA RN STAFFING RATIO LAW

[Ruger8mm]

Because unions are little more than a cancer to employment, individuality and capitalism.

[Ruger8mm]

XNavyCorpsman said:

When you have a Union you loose flexibility. I'll give you an example; Most of us Nurses want to adjust our work schedule so that we get more days off in a row. We can't because that would require the LPN's, which are Unionized, to adjust their contract. If you know anything about Unions, once you join a Union, you now work for the Union and NOT the hospital. The biggest thing is you loose flexibility.

Exactly. Unions inhibit optimization and promote laziness.

[LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN]

Ruger8mm said:

Exactly. Unions inhibit optimization and promote laziness.

And that happens in non-union places as well..

[sarbo1010]

I worked at a hospital in Florida that was actually the first hospital to get a union in Florida. And while it did help us get pay and if you had a problem with management you had someone there to stand up for you, it did not help with staffing ratios. Florida does not have any state laws for staffing ratios and so the unions can't really enforce that. While it did improve the work atmosphere over all, still no lunches, unsafe staffing etc, etc,. With you being from Louisiana, good luck. I suspect if they even hear you breathe the word "union" you won't have to worry about being tripled anymore.

I did find when working at union hospitals in California that you get your breaks and for the most part state mandated staffing ratios are maintained, but you have those staff that are really crappy to work with that you can't budge out of there because they have the union protecting them due to seniority. It's a real mixed bag as far as I am concerned.

[littlelimabean01, LPN]

Someone has probably said this, I was just too frustrated at the topic to read all the responses. Unions are BAD!!! This means the suckiest nurse can basically keep their job as long as they are UNION. We do Not want that. That is like a "tenured" professor that is truly a bad teacher. It doesn't matter they still get paid to stink at their job. Unions came to be popular around the Industrial Revolution era when workers were supposedly being treated in an unfair manor. I look at having a job is a privilege, not a right. I am not saying continue to work for a place that treats you poorly, but unionizing is not the answer. I have worked in customer service my entire life and I include my 5+ nears of nursing to fall into that category ,so 24 years. I certainly can attest to some mal-treatment from my employers, but If it was deemed intolerable to me I usually just quit.

[Not_A_Hat_Person, RN]

All of the bad stuff I've heard about unions came from union members. I worked with 2 rabidly anti-union people who had worked for UPS. They were laid off as part of the big 1990s strike settlement, and the union washed its hands of them. My mother went through the same thing with Northwest Orient in the 1970s.

Plus, some unions only benefit some of the members. Unions can be good if you are mistreated by management, but worse than useless if you are being harassed by a fellow member, or a lot of fellow members. When my mother worked for Amtrak, there were big problems with sexual harassment, mostly men openly showing Media in the crew base. The women complained to management. The union defended the men, and only the men, every time.

[heron, ASN, RN]

Nope, not buying it.

Sucky nurses under a union contract enjoy the same work rule protections as the good nurses. It's the easiest thing in the world for mgmt to blame the union to cover up their own laziness and incompetence.

And please don't conflate sexism with unions. The union supported the men because the men were in control of it. If you don't like what your union is doing, change it. It's your union. Stop waiting for someone else to come along and fix it for you.

[NursesRmofun, ASN, RN]

I have never worked in a unionized hospital. I worked in one where there was a short time when a union was courting the nurses, and the hospital stepped up and gave us some extra pay and benies and the union soon vanished into the mist with not enough votes to get in. I always thought of unions as a double edged sword. It could work for you or against you, depending on the circumstances. I did finally work in a facility (not a hospital though) that had a union. I could see the union worked best for the people with *seniority and I have found that with other types of unions my spouse (at a certain time) belonged to. So, again...pluses and minuses. If a facility/institution gets better nurse-patient-ratios from it, then I am all for it though!