I didn't know the shortage was THIS bad

James Huffman · Aug 21, 2002

Interesting discussion here. Several points need making.

First is that there's nothing wrong with hospitals making money. They are (usually) corporations, and that's one of the things corporations are there for. Hospitals used to be charitable operations, but part of the package with being a charitable is that staff (nurses, mostly) were paid next to nothing.

Secondly, what's wrong with nurses selling their services to the highest bidder? All nurses are "selling" their services: you give them time, they give you money and benefits. If you don't want to travel, work on a "difficult" unit, work in a bad area, or whatever, that's OK, but nurses are paid what the market will bear, and nurses making $100K+ are generally putting up with some things others don't want to deal with. Those who say that all nurses "should" be making over $100K are not being realistic. There is no fairy in the sky setting nursing salaries. Nurses make more money by being better at what they do, being adept at selling their services, and not being afraid to say what they want. If you are -- in the long-term -- being stepped on, underpaid, or whatever on your job, it's happening because you have chosen to let it happen that way.

Part of the problem is that many nurses still think it's "beneath" them to negotiate hard-ball over salary, benefits, and working conditions. I have no problem with TV ads promoting nursing careers, but I notice there are no ads begging people to become physicians. If nurses would get over the idea that somehow they should automatically be paid big salaries, and decide to do what it takes to MAKE big pay, there would be no shortage of nurses. Physicians and other professionals do this all the time, and no one grumbles about their "selling their services to the highest bidder."

As I said before, if you don't want to travel, don't want to move, want to work in a particular hospital or unit, or whatever, that's your call, but stop whining about your salary. You have chosen your salary, and that's OK. Just don't complain about people who fill in the tough gaps, and make bigger money doing it.

Jim Huffman, RN

http://www.NetworkforNurses.com

teeituptom, BSN, RN · Aug 21, 2002

Howdy yall

from deep in the heat of texas

Very nicely put James Huffman

And Ryan RN, you call it high principles, but it sounds like the same old unionist rhetoric to me. "benefits,pay.and respect" are not easily earned, and no union is going to see that you get them. The only person who can do that is you, yourself. Personally I never waited on anyone to give me anything, I went out and got it. The old fashioned way.... I earned it.

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CardioTrans, BSN, RN · Aug 21, 2002

OK........ I have to get in on this one

I and a girlfriend of mine were just talking about all this 2 days ago.......

SmilingBluEyes and FlowerChild......... I agree 100%. People have to realize exactly what it is that nurses do.

I work at a major teaching university and the largest employer in my state and it is awful! Our CCU unit has 1 nurse on nights that has more than 6 months experience, all the rest of the nurses have been out of school since June. My Heart Transplant ICU has nurses with the avg of 4 yrs exp in nursing. We go to work everyday and keep patients alive by titrating medicines to keep their blood pressure up, we obtain certifications in a variety of things from oncology, CCRN, ACLS, AORN......etc and for what??? 25 cents a certification??? We are talked to like we are completely "stupid" for lack of a better word because we have to call and wake a physician up in the middle of the night because his patient is crashing and hes mad because hes losing sleep. We have college educations and have a highly stressful job keeping these patients alive and are only making just a little more than a broom pusher at the local car plant, who has no college education at all. And doesnt have to worry about keeping someone alive, or having a patient react badly to a drug that they are given, or a code happening to one of the 20 pts in the unit, and Lord forbid that 2 patients code at the same time in the same unit.

The benefits are awful......... costing over 200 dollars a month for a family while the local Buweiser man has insurance for free.

All of the "bills" floating around Congress right now are a joke. They are offering to pay for people to go into nursing so that it will help alleviate the shortage.......... While they need to be worrying about the nurses already out in the work force, otherwise they are going to have to pay alot of tuition payments to replace everyone who has left.

The retention bonuses to stay at the hospitals are pulled out from underneath you just weeks before they are supposed to be given out, citing "budget problems" Well ya know if they would pay their nurses (and I am including LPNs and CNAs) like they pay the pencil pushers who supposedly know all about bedside nursing that faint at the site of blood, and have never been at the bedside......... they may not have a budget problem, much less staffing problems.

The whole system right now infuriates the hell out of me, and we wont even get into the elder care issue with Medicare and medicines that the elderly have to pay for.

I have always wanted to be a nurse and over the last 12 yrs of it, it has steadily gotten worse and will only continue to get worse.

A doctor asked me not too long ago if I had it to do over again would I go to nursing school........ NO I wouldnt. Then he asked me about the shortage...did I think that it would get better......... the answer to that is IT HAS TO or the medical field is going to be in a world of hurt.

James Huffman · Aug 21, 2002

Originally posted by CardioTrans
OK........ I have to get in on this one

The retention bonuses to stay at the hospitals are pulled out from underneath you just weeks before they are supposed to be given out, citing "budget problems" Well ya know if they would pay their nurses (and I am including LPNs and CNAs) like they pay the pencil pushers who supposedly know all about bedside nursing that faint at the site of blood, and have never been at the bedside......... they may not have a budget problem, much less staffing problems.

OK, folks, this is a no-brainer. If you are offered a retention bonus, smile real big, and ask for a written contract. If they balk at this, you can be pretty sure there may be trouble down the road. If the retention bonus is part of a general hospital policy, make a copy of that page. And keep it. If they try to back out, don't get mad, just smile, and insist that they keep their end of the contract. If they refuse to do that, smile again, and sue them.

There's no law that says nurses have to be doormats. Take charge of your life, or others will take charge of it.

Jim Huffman, RN

http://www.NetworkforNurses.com

teeituptom, BSN, RN · Aug 22, 2002

Howdy yall

from deep in the heat of texas

AMEN James huffman

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RyanRN · Aug 23, 2002

Below read just one example of the so called fair treatment of employees for those who think we need to solve this dilemma by working it out and cooperating with people who have NO INTENTION of working on anything but lip service. BTW, this is not 1949 and coal-miners, it's now. One must just read a daily newspaper to see how fairly management will treat any worker without some kind of unity or power. I am appalled that anyone would infer that we ALL don't work and earn money the old fashioned way by earning it.

Mr. Huffman, we already know and agree with your marketing angle, it's exactly what we strive for. How about making your money supplying needed staffing and stay away from picket lines. Everybody wins, we establish better salaries and working conditions and patient outcome and the regular staff and SCABS( who won't have to put themselves out for a minute), get all the benefits. Win Win.

Meantime, with the attitude shown on this thread and the disgraceful 'getting into bed' thus DIRECTLY AIDING these folks (word it anyway you choose), I wouldn't want to be anywhere near your watch!

What About Corporate Terrorism?

By David Moberg

David Moberg is a senior editor at the newsmagazine In These Times.

August 23, 2002

Until 1998 Sherri Bufkin happily worked as a manager for Smithfield Foods in Tar Heel, N.C. But in 1997, when workers in the giant meatpacking plant there began to organize a union, her superiors - she has testified - forced her to join their campaign to "do whatever was necessary to keep [the union] out."

Bufkin also said she had to tell workers that they would suffer violence and lose jobs if they formed a union, and that she had to discriminate in assignments against pro-union workers. Worse yet, her bosses insisted that she fire some workers simply because they openly supported a union. Then they demanded that she sign false affidavits about management's tactics - many of which clearly violated laws protecting workers' right to organize.

Shortly after she refused to lie for the company at a National Labor Relations Board hearing, Smithfield fired her, plunging her into prolonged unemployment and bankruptcy. "I don't regret standing up for the truth," she told a June 20 Senate committee hearing on obstacles to forming unions, "because now I can look my daughter square in the eye."

Senators also heard from workers - like nurse Nancy Schweikhard, ship captain Eric J. Vizier and hotel worker Mario Vidales - who told of being the direct victims of management harassment, threats to close their workplaces, a beating by anti-union thugs, and arrests or surveillance by police cooperating with anti-union employers.

But few other Americans heard these stories, because the hearing went nearly unreported. That's a shame. At a time when the country is preoccupied with terrorism from abroad and Enron-style corporate abuses at home, it is important to remember that millions of American workers who would like to have a voice on the job have been denied their internationally recognized human rights by corporations who "in too many cases act like real domestic terrorists," in the words of AFL-CIO organizer Stewart Acuff.

According to Senate testimony from Kenneth Roth, whose Human Rights Watch group two years ago documented "widespread labor rights violations" in the United States, in the 1950s a few hundred workers a year were fired - illegally - for trying to organize unions. But in 1998 - despite a much lower level of union organizing activity - 24,000 workers lost their jobs just because they were trying to exercise their internationally guaranteed freedom to associate with other workers on the job.

Now, less than 14 percent of the U.S. workforce belong to unions, but surveys suggest that 44 percent wish they did. Employer threats, firings and systematic intimidation stifle many bids to unionize. In 92 percent of all organizing efforts, employers force workers to attend anti-union meetings. In half of all campaigns - and more than 70 percent of organizing at manufacturing businesses - employers threaten to close the business and, often, to move overseas, if workers unionize.

This month, workers at Quadrtech, a small manufacturing plant in Southern California, reached a financial settlement with management that also marked the end of their attempt to unionize. Nearly two years ago, a federal court issued an injunction to stop the owner from moving to Mexico in order to avoid unionization. But the company reportedly kept trying to move.

Even when workers overcome employer obstacles and vote - or otherwise show support - for a union, managers often refuse to negotiate a contract. For example, much-abused farm workers have voted in 428 elections for the United Farm Workers since 1975, but growers have only signed 185 contracts (although a bill awaiting California Gov. Gray Davis's signature would require binding arbitration in deadlocked negotiations). Employers suffer minuscule penalties that don't deter lawbreaking.

Early this month, the AFL-CIO launched a new campaign to protect worker rights at work, especially the right to join unions without interference from employers. A stronger worker voice would increase economic security and equality, restrain abuse of corporate power, and enhance democracy.

As Kenneth Roth told the senators, "if the rights of workers are not respected and protected, then the strength of American democracy and freedom is diminished."

Democracy and freedom need protection from physical threats of terrorists - and from overzealous antiterrorists, like the Bush administration, which wants to deny workers in a new Department of Homeland Security both civil service protections and the right to organize into unions.

But democracy and freedom also must be safeguarded against the corporate economic terrorism that hurts us all, not just working people directly denied their rights to join together in a union.

Dplear · Aug 23, 2002

As for me making 100k+ a year, I am a staff nurse. I negotiated my hourly rate and work hours. I work 3 days a week (fri-sun) every weekend and get 20% more for it. I also am a charge nurse and make the diff for that. The 100k figure does not take into account any side work i may do on my days off. I might do 1-2 days a month agency...or more of I feel like it or want to do some more home remodeliong. I have had to switch employers in that past to get what I wanted and work in areas that alot of people do not want to work in, but I felt the end result worth the hassle. I provide a comfortable living for my family and I am able to be home with my kids mon-thursday. I get them off to school and get them home from school. I am able to help with homework, and I cook dinner 4 nights of the week. (and am a pretty damn good cook...just made pork tenderloin with a bourbon sauce and pineapple jam) as nurses we can make what we demand. we just have to fight for it. As for unions negoitating for you....who controls your unions...nurses I hope and you can demand of them the same things I demand and am able to get. You need to control your own destiny and not let someonme else decide for you.

Dave

RyanRN · Aug 23, 2002

Oh so true Dplear and I see you have attained what you need by stepping on noones back. I am all for hard work - a honest days pay for an honest days work. Bravo. And I personally would be happy to do all this without having a union involved. But alas, we see the treatment we get when we must depend on others with power to play fair. It's the REASON unions came into being.

sjoe · Aug 23, 2002

Mr. Huffman. Excellent comments and right on the money.

Dplear. Thanks for being a successful role model for assertiveness, self-confidence, and demanding what your work is worth.

Market value is determined by the market and by the negotiating skills of those directly involved. If I am willing to sell my services for a particular financial (and workplace-condition, staffing level, working hours, etc.) package, and the contents of that package is defined completely by the buyer, then I have made a sale on the buyer's terms. I have nothing to complain about.

If I find myself later dissatisfied with these terms, I would be wise to keep these dissatisfactions in mind for the next time I make this kind of agreement, so I'll know more about what I want (and what additionally I might have to contribute in terms of skills, flexibility, etc. for the buyer to go for the deal).

If I don't want to make a sale on the buyer's terms, I need to negotiate my own terms and convince the buyer that they have made a good bargain.

It has nothing to do with indignation, righteousness, or what other people are getting paid. Nothing to do with how large a family or how expensive a habit I may have to support. It's simply the marketplace.

IMHO.

teeituptom, BSN, RN · Aug 24, 2002

Howdy yall

from deep in the heat of texas

RyanRn, thank you for the prounion attitudes. I dont agree but thank you anyway.

Dplear right on, and whats the recipe for you pork tenderloin with bourbon sauce and pineapple jam. Im an excellent cook also but havent done much with pork. Could use that bourbon sauce with some nice vennison or rabbit I bet.

sjoe. its always just been about the marketplace, as you put it. Nothing else is important. But above all, you have to be true to yourself. The main downfall with unions, is it takes away your ability to sell yourself on your own merit, and lumps you in a grouping with other nurses of similar backgrounds who may not be willing or assertive enough to sell their services for what they are worth. Unions take away the right of the individual and act as a group. Some of the services I have provided at times in representing myself would never be allowed to happen in a union setting. This takes away from the market value I used in the past.

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sjoe · Aug 25, 2002

teeituptom: Exactly right about unions--the dictatorship of the mediocre and unimaginative.

In a union situation, if I don't have the (whatever) to represent myself, instead of negotiating my own terms, I accept the terms of the buyer--as mediated by the union (which, in more cases than not has ITS OWN agenda, and certainly not MY individual agenda).

The same story in public education and everywhere else that workers prefer to think of themselves as somehow "above" the concept of the market, or "too professional," usually due to some notion of moral superiority. Because of this, of course, they usually get substantially less than what they want. They are expecting buyers "somehow" to immediately recognize their superiority, surmise what it is they want, and provide it. All of which is exactly what the instutions like, so these institutions push the "above it all" and "we're professional" way of thinking and hope the workers believe it.

There seem to be only individual solutions to this kind of thing, rather than a collective one, particularly since these same people who are not getting what they want do not seem to have the ability to work together cooperatively. IMHO.

teeituptom, BSN, RN · Aug 25, 2002

Howdy yall

from deep in the heat of texas

Nicely put and phrase sjoe

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