Would you ever be a scab?

Nurses Union

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Due to a short stint in travel nursing, I am now on the email list of several travel nursing companies. I just received an email from one company, talking about how they're gearing up to send 300+ nurses out to Maine, in anticipation of a strike.

They're only guaranteeing 36 hours total, and they anticipate the strike may end by that time. And they're offering $46/hour for a week of work.

I don't know, if I'm going to uproot my life, fly across country, cross a picket line of angry nurses, and only have one week of guaranteed work, I darn well better be paid more than $46/hour!

What say you?

Would you, could you, be a scab? For $46/hour?

Specializes in pcu/stepdown/tele.

While I would not cross a picket line, I believe that as a nursing profession we have to realize that there will be people who will HAVE to cross it to care for the sick people. Here is an example: Small town hospital, closest "trauma" facility is 1hr+ away, a good 35 min helicopter ride even if it isn't storming (daily occurance here). So if my mom is having a heart attack, the ambulance is going to take her to the local hospital to get stable. Which is still a good 20 min away. So, if that hospital is shut down because nurses are striking, mom will have to be transported a good hour to hour and half away to be seen. Will she make it? Alive with no lasting damage? At least my local hospital can get her started and stable to transport.

So while I am a nurse and I would choose to not cross a picket line, the reason I went into nursing is because of my patients. If I work at a union hospital, and we go on strike, I will have to assume that there will be "scabs" who will come and take care of my patients for me because they still need care no matter what nurses do or say. The hospitals may cancel elective surgeries but they will NOT be able to shut their doors and we shouldn't expect them to. I'm not saying that it is right or wrong, I'm just saying that it is. People need care, they need nurses to care for them, there is no way around it and hospitals have to pay out the a** for strike workers so that is their incentive to prevent the strike. I just think that anyone who has to cross the strike lines should still be treated with respect, they may not be doing this because they want to, maybe they need the money or maybe they just realize that those patients need help too. Please treat them as the professionals they are, they went to school just like you, have bills to pay just like you and they are probably on your side in your issues. Show some compassion for the patients and don't take it out on those who are there to help your patients get better.

Specializes in CDI Supervisor; Formerly NICU.

I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.

The only ones that benefit from a union strike....is the union itself! not the members! My dad was union and they broke into our house and tore stuff up, solely because he had to cross the picket line to get a loan when my grandfather was dying!!!! The unions can stick it as far as I'm concerned! I'd cross the line in a minute.....I'm supporting me and mine!

Unions have outlived their usefulness and are nothing more than bullies.

Sorry, it was a sore spot and a soap box moment for me. ;-)

Specializes in Psych , Peds ,Nicu.

flnursemichelle , if you have read previous post re. strike breakers ( please note I usually refer to them as such in my posts , rather than the S. word ) you will find that most simply express the sentiment of HOW much is in it for me for being a strike breaker .They do not care what caused the professional nurses at the facility to vote for the strike .

Some who strike break come from areas where pay and staffing is relatively low , but rather than try to improve the situation at home they take the easy route by taking the strike breaking positions .

I am pragmatic enough to accept that employers will offer these positions and nurses will take them , but I feel those who take them sell themselves cheaply ( if you have a needed service , which is hard to fulfill ,you should be able to ask a high price for your service )and try to cover there actions by the fig leaf of moral outrage that nurses abandon patients , to justify their financially motivated action ( which is what they are often accusing the striking nurses of ie. they are only striking because of the money ).

The situation you describe of a rural hospital being effected by a strike is petinent . However , do you not think , the nurses who voted for the strike are not aware of the potential effects of their decision and therefore there must be a good reason for taking action .

You ask for the strike breakers to be treated with respect , sorry I can't do that , I can understand that they may have financial obligations that cause them to strike break .But they are putting their needs ahead of the needs of the striking Nurses and the longterm safety of patient ( where staffing etc. is a factor that caused the nurses to vote for a strike ).

Specializes in school RN, CNA Instructor, M/S.

The only time I ever crossed a picket line was as a Union informant for other nursing unions to gather first hand info on how well staffed the hospital has suddenly become because everybody is watching!!! I would collect staffing info and "interview" strickbreaking nurses and supervisors on the pretext of being a concerned family member of a patient currently in the hospital. I used my clinical experience as a nurse to uncover staffing levels and compensation packages being offered to strikebreaking nurses. I LOVED my job as a union organizer!!!!

Absolutely! Someone has to care for the patients that have been abandoned by the striking nurses. Its the nurses who strike that should be singled out by their colleagues. These are unprofessional individuals who put money before patients. I personally think any nurse who strikes should be summarily fired just like the ATC goons who struck! This is not about solidarity as they would have you think nor is it about patient safety but it is about the almighty dollar and that idiot boss rose. Unions have far outlived their usefulness and need to go the way of the dinosaur!

Specializes in ICU.

These words are as true today as when Jack London wrote them:

After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, He had some awful substance left with which He made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a waterlogged brain, and a combination backbone made of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles.

When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out. No man has a right to scab as long as there is a pool of water deep enough to drown his body in, or a rope long enough to hang his carcass with. Judas Iscariot was a gentleman compared with a scab. For betraying his Master, he had character enough to hang himself. A scab hasn't.

Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. Judas Iscariot sold his savior for thirty pieces of silver. Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of a commission in the British Army. The modern strikebreaker sells his birthright, his country, his wife, his children, and his fellow men for an unfulfilled promise from his employer, trust, or corporation.

Union-contrived talking points and derogatory names aside, I have no problem breaking a picket line to get to work... after all, is our profession not about helping and providing care for the patients and putting them first? If not, then some of us are in the wrong profession.

The bottom line is that I am a "free agent" and will work wherever and for whomever I choose; I have not paid and will not pay fees so that I may work at a place that requires union membership.

These words are as true today as when Jack London wrote them:

After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, He had some awful substance left with which He made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a waterlogged brain, and a combination backbone made of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles.

When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out. No man has a right to scab as long as there is a pool of water deep enough to drown his body in, or a rope long enough to hang his carcass with. Judas Iscariot was a gentleman compared with a scab. For betraying his Master, he had character enough to hang himself. A scab hasn't.

Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. Judas Iscariot sold his savior for thirty pieces of silver. Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of a commission in the British Army. The modern strikebreaker sells his birthright, his country, his wife, his children, and his fellow men for an unfulfilled promise from his employer, trust, or corporation.

:yawn::yawn::yawn::yawn::yawn::yawn:

Specializes in ICU/CCU/TRAUMA/ECMO/BURN/PACU/.
Union-contrived talking points and derogatory names aside, I have no problem breaking a picket line to get to work... after all, is our profession not about helping and providing care for the patients and putting them first? If not, then some of us are in the wrong profession.

The bottom line is that I am a "free agent" and will work wherever and for whomever I choose; I have not paid and will not pay fees so that I may work at a place that requires union membership.

:idea:Well, "free" agent, you've got the golden handcuff syndrome, locked in by the money, like a mercenary 'soldier of fortune', and IMHO, ultimately, you sell the profession short taking that line of reasoning. (As the saying goes, "It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.")

Are you really able to provide the safe and effective care with an high acuity/high patient to nurse ratio with limited or no ancillary staffing? Nah, ya just dumb down the concepts of safe and effective care, take the money and run, instead of trying to improve conditions. Taking the money and leaving the problems for someone else to solve is not professional. Neither is ignoring them, or stepping over and going around the nurses who are trying to effect positive change.

It stands to reason that in a step down unit, for instance, if you have 3 patients, you're going to catch subtle signs and symptoms that could lead to deterioration of the patient's condition. If you're assigned 6 or 8 patients you're just not going to be able to do that; provide an optimum level of surveillance, ongoing assessment, evaluation, teaching, hygiene, and observing for efficacy or side effects of medication. Some nurses have a false sense of security about the code teams and rapid response teams, and reason that if anything bad happens, they've got back up. That's just wrong. Why push your patients to the cliff by remaining silent about deliberate "for profit" short staffing, and then, when you find they've fallen over the cliff, think someone else will come along, "just in time" to save them. That's unprofessional!

I myself would cross the picket line. I'm a nurse not to much in to politics. Right or wrong there are people who depend on us who have nothing to do with the politics of the hospital they are there for a reason or is your schooling and taking care of people a joke and comes down to dollar and cents.

And in doing so of crossing that line if any harm comes my way ( spitting on me trying to grab me trying to punch me or hurt me in any way) You (yourself) will be in the hospital you are picketing. I will personally see to it.

I understand work conditions and money health insurance and feeding your family and in the same token you have to understand i have to feed my family as well. Politics will play their games you have to be big enough to play yours and it's not a question of stabbing my sisters and brothers in the back. I have to do whats right for me and you should do the same. These are my thoughts use them as you wish

I can understand both sides- I do believe we nurses have to stand up to these greedy administrations but I can also understand that nurses need to keep roofs over their kids' heads, heat in their homes and food on the table- many of our nurses from certain areas of our country are not making a decent wage or are out of work and can't find a full time position. This economy is god awful and very cruel to nurses.

I would love to be a "union organizer" like the one the above poster cited - interviewing staff during a strike and info gathering.

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