Has anyone else been following the thread under Nurse Activism "Cleveland Clinic destroys wages." The hospital has been using big-business tactics to keep nurses from working agency. Bringing in many foreign nurses also, to keep the domestic nurses in line. Also, some AHA bigwigs in Ohio have even proposed the end to nursing licensure as we know it--want something they call "institutional licensure." (In other words, they want the freedom to train UAP's in situ in response to the nursing crisis, of course, and THEY determine what these "institutionalized licensees" can do, giving medications included). Another thread describes how the illustrious Governor Ventura in Minnesota and other politicos there have frozen agency nurses wages to "force" nurses back into institutions (in this case, nursing homes, I believe). Another poster has alerted us to the fact that in her hospital one answer to the "nursing shortage" is to allow EMT's and paramedics to work in the ICU! I find a very disturbing trend here. The economy turned sour along with the nursing shortage crisis may backfire on all of us. Much pressure is being put on lesiglators by big business AHA-types behind closed doors, to loosen licensure restrictions, to loosen hiring practice, to loosen emmigration restrictions for foreign nurses. These big-wigs are blaming all their problems on nurses, when they created the problem in the first place! The hospitals are truly doing their best to destroy nursing as a profession. The bottom line here is--our wages, our freedom to work where we please, and also, control over our profession and practice environment.