Do you have a union? Should nurses strike?

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Having a union in my opinion makes the diference between having the right to hold my head up and stand up for my patients and being an abused and overworked doormat. How many of us are in unions? Who has been involved in a nurses strike? What was it for and did you win it? Were your patients better off for it? What has your union done for you?

I grew up the daughter and granddaughter of coal miners in KY. Non- union.

I would love to talk more to my grandfather about his days as a coal miner.

But I can't. He is DEAD from black lung, having worked in a NON-UNION MINE, WITHOUT PROPER SAFTEY EQUIPMENT.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

Never worked union and wouldn't want to. Therefore, never been 'on strike'.

I have a great non-union job so, I'd have no need to work crossing a picket line. But, I see no problem in doing so.

Nursing is different than 'blue-collar' work. IF you cross a nursing line, I would think that it would bring the hospital EVEN CLOSER to a settlement.

They can't NOT hire strike replacements - and at 10k/week a pop, strike replacements will break the back of any hospital holdout before too very long.

I would think that nurses on strike would APPRECIATE strike replacement workers. Safer care than management can provide AND a financial bleed out that can do nothing other than force admin back to the table.

So, you want 2 million in raises over this next contract? If admin has to pay 3 million for a month's worth of strike replacement workers, how long will it be BEFORE they decide that 2 million is acceptable?

I think it's a matter of not looking at the 'bigger' picture. The problem with 'blue-collar scabs' is that those scabs will UNDERCUT the union workers and, as a result, management can hold out indef.

That simply isn't the same for nurses. Strike replacements for nurses BLEED admins dry. What a good thing for unions!

~faith,

Timothy.

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Never worked union and wouldn't want to. Therefore, never been 'on strike'.

I have a great non-union job so, I'd have no need to work crossing a picket line. But, I see no problem in doing so.

Nursing is different than 'blue-collar' work. IF you cross a nursing line, I would think that it would bring the hospital EVEN CLOSER to a settlement.

They can't NOT hire strike replacements - and at 10k/week a pop, strike replacements will break the back of any hospital holdout before too very long.

I would think that nurses on strike would APPRECIATE strike replacement workers. Safer care than management can provide AND a financial bleed out that can do nothing other than force admin back to the table.

So, you want 2 million in raises over this next contract? If admin has to pay 3 million for a month's worth of strike replacement workers, how long will it be BEFORE they decide that 2 million is acceptable?

I think it's a matter of not looking at the 'bigger' picture. The problem with 'blue-collar scabs' is that those scabs will UNDERCUT the union workers and, as a result, management can hold out indef.

That simply isn't the same for nurses. Strike replacements for nurses BLEED admins dry. What a good thing for unions!

~faith,

Timothy.

DITTO

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I grew up the daughter and granddaughter of coal miners in KY. Non- union.

I would love to talk more to my grandfather about his days as a coal miner.

But I can't. He is DEAD from black lung, having worked in a NON-UNION MINE, WITHOUT PROPER SAFTEY EQUIPMENT.

I was talking about PA UNION Coal miners.. They were sold out by the union. The union was "in bed", a direct quote from a former union member with management. Getting kick backs from management and dues from the union workers.

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So, you want 2 million in raises over this next contract? If admin has to pay 3 million for a month's worth of strike replacement workers, how long will it be BEFORE they decide that 2 million is acceptable?

I think it's a matter of not looking at the 'bigger' picture. The problem with 'blue-collar scabs' is that those scabs will UNDERCUT the union workers and, as a result, management can hold out indef.

That simply isn't the same for nurses. Strike replacements for nurses BLEED admins dry. What a good thing for unions!

~faith,

Timothy.

Actually, on this we can agree. Although a lot of it also depends on how unified the striking RN's are and the availability of scabs in the marketplace.

Last year nearly 100 percent of the University of California nurses voted to go out on strike. The RN's were very unified and it was clear that 9,000 of them were going to walk out on the job.

UoC had to spend $9 million for just one day to replace them, because UoC had to pay RN's from out of state up to $1,000 a day. There wasn't enough RN's in the state to replace them.

While a court did issue a last minute temporary order to stop the strike the day it was supposed to happen, by then it was too late ... UoC still had to spend that $9 million.

Because UoC knew that the RN's would strike eventually and, at $9 million a day it would cost them a fortune, they gave the RN's a lot of what they wanted ... namely guaranteed retirement benefits (which UoC was trying to cut), pay raises, etc. in the new contract.

However, if the union doesn't have much support where a lot of their members do cross the picket line ... then it's a completely different story.

At Scripps Encinitas in San Diego, for example, they also did a one day strike but, several RN's crossed the line so ... ultimately, they did not get as good of a contract as the UoC RN's did.

:typing

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I was talking about PA UNION Coal miners.. They were sold out by the union. The union was "in bed", a direct quote from a former union member with management. Getting kick backs from management and dues from the union workers.

Yes, any person or any organization can become corrupt.

This does not legitimize your stance that: union = bad.

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And neither the legislature nor the unions have succeed. IF they had they wouldn't need travelers.

You can mandate out the whazoo but those mandates don't make nurses appear.

\.

I don't understand why you believe that having travellers is a bad sign.

I also don't understand why the number of travellers compared to the number of people in California is particularly relevant. Of course a state with around 30 million people like California is going to have a different demographic than Kansas or Wyoming.

Ratios HAVE made nurses appear in the form of travellers and nurses who move here as staff (I was one) and nurses who re-enter nursing. The BON has clear stats on the increase in registrations since the ratios were mandated. Mandates don't solve everything and they can't completely fill all our staff positions, but in the meantime they make managers get serious about filling them and that's a good thing IMO whether it's with regular staff or travellers.

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As a new nurse, I don't know much about unions, even though I'm in one. I couldn't see my union ever going on strike. Its seems like they're not very vocal at my hospital. Our LPNs as a rule for the last month have been pulled from our floor on my shift regardless of what our acuity is or how many admissions we're getting, leaving just me and another RN on the floor with two nurse aides (thank God) and often no secretary. So it could be worse, but things have been getting out of hand lately. I talked to my union rep recently who pretty much told me that I could place a grievance if I wanted to, but usually people only place grievances if a patients goes bad as a result of poor staffing.....which didn't really sit too well with me. I'm placing a grievance anyways because I really don't want to have to see a patient get seriously hurt before something is done. Last week there was a day when the other RN and I had some pretty sick patients in addition to three admissions and two discharges between just to the two of us, and of course no secretary except for two who came for about half an hour each to do paperwork for the admissions. The rest of the time we had to go running for the phone every single time it rang.

So my union gets me some paid days off here and there, and of course decent pay, but they don't really do much else for me and the working conditions on my floor. Of course I would support a strike, depending on the reasons for it and such, but I doubt anything like that would ever happen.

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greentea:

We staff nurses had to take over our union by runnig for office and voting to leave the so called "parent" organization. I say "so called" because the CNA existed both before and after our affiliation with the ANA.

I was charge on the night shift of our critical care unit the weekend after we won our union election. Since 1976 we've had a ratio of 2 or fewer patients per nurse at all times.

A nurse had been cancelled for low census. All but me had two while I had one. Just after report the supervisor told me, "There are four patients in the ER that will be coming to you. What room will you put the MI in? The GI bleed?" etcetera.

I told her, "It is not safe."

She said, "I know but I've called all the registries and no one is available."

Well how many times had a registry nurse told us they would have worked but were not called? Why did they cancel a nurse leaving us with no one to provide meal and breal relief?

So WE filled out an assignment despite objection form stating that as patient advocates in accordance with the California Nursing Practice Act WE are informing you that in OUR professional opinion this assignment poses a risk to the health and safety of OUR patients. Therefore the hospital is responsible for any harm to a patient. WE will attempt to carry out this assignment to the best of OUR ability."

Everyone on the unit signed it including our traveler and secretary.

The shift supervisor, a kind person, took it and called us back in about fifteen minutes. She had "magically" found three registry nurses. They arrived before the ER patients arrived.

Good thing too because a few hours later we admitted an in-house code.

Now HOW could they decide to cancel a nurse leaving no safe legal way for an admit or assignment of a patient who codes on a unit?

Many of us have worked together for decades. We've attended weddings, baby showers, kids birthdays, funerals, those same kids weddings, grandchildrens birthdays, and retirement parties.

WE work together and welcome new nurses to our fine hospital. As I said the nurses save the hospital.

They can do without one of us but not all of us.

WE care for patients at night, on weekends and holidays when they are not there.

Just like you. For over twenty years we became united. The union gives us legal protection to advocate for our patients.

Edited to add that this link is about other nurses who are united. I can feel their love for each other from the newspaper words on my computer screen:

https://allnurses.com/forums/f195/cook-county-nurses-union-threatens-1-day-strike-if-talks-dont-speed-up-161580.html

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Sounds so wonderful, Spacenurse!

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I'm confused. It's not about money but they are getting a 21% raise. Are they giving that raise to someone else or charity??

I thought the union paid them when they were on strike. So they pay dues for what? To go on strike and starve?

How is letting unqualified workers take care of sick patients in their best interest and how does that "make a safer environment for the staff and patients".

If a nurse truely has her patients well being in mind she doesn't let them be taken care of by unqualified workers. She is glad that qualified "scabs"

take care of her/his ( have to be pc here) patients in her/his absence.

JMHO.

Well, since the "martyr marys" of nursing have spoken, what, exactly, are nurses supposed to so, when they are confronted with unsafe staffing, or, in other cases, when their pay and benefits are inadequate? What method are they supposed to use? Hire mafia hit men to fight their battles?

Do you realize that hospitals use high priced ($$$$$$), powerful, lawfirms, to bust union activity at their facilities? Nurses up against the "big guns" of society", with only their worthless state nursing assiations to back them up?

Nurses are now, and have always been, kept powerless, "barefoot, and pregnant" by hospitals. And that is how the hospitals want it. If nurses had organized years ago, when they were finally allowed to unionize, there would be a very different picture today.

It is the hospitals responsibility to staff their facility, not the nursing staff. If they don't want the nurses to strike, than they can listen to their nursing staff, pay good wages, and benefits, and provide for reasonable "grievance procedures" when their is a dispute. In other words, the ball is in THEIR court. Nothing will ever change until nurses stick up for themselves, and demand better wages, benefits, and working conditions. Nice guys finish last.

Expecting nurses to be powerless is what got us into this predictment in the first place. If hospital don't want a strike, they can bargain fairly with the nursing staff. Years ago, the post office was a poorly paid branch of the governent workers. After years of negotiation, and being "Mr. Nice Guy", the post office went on strike all over this country. It took three days for the government to give in to the postal workers, and agree to a contract that gave them better wages, and benefits. My point- the squeeky wheel gets the grease. Nurses are entitled to some of that. The HMOs, and insurance companies are making billions, and they can afford to pay nurses better and improve staffing. Nurses truly have their best intersts at heart when the strike for better staffing, and wages as well. Fighting the individuals who are trying to make things better, hurts no one but the nurses in this country. JMHO, and $0.02.

Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN

Spokane, Washington

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Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN

:pumpiron: :caduceus: :yeah: :yeah: :yeah: :nurse:

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