Largest Nurses Strike in US History - Replacement Nurses Arrive - Your opinion

[girlvet]

12,000 nurses in minneapolis are going to vote on whether to strike next wednesday. This would be the largest nurse strike in US history. It looks like we WILL vote to strike. The employer is trying to take back 30 years of gains nurses have made here for safe patient care. They are trying to cut our pension by 30 percent, change our health insurance among other things. We need your support with this. This is going on across the country and nurses have to stand up for each other! If you think this won't come to your hospital, you are wrong. Support your fellow nurses.

For more info go to http://www.mnnurses.org/

[mom2cka]

Busy day here in Minnesota - I'm not a union nurse, but am watching the news and hoping for a good outcome

Hospitals: Planning paying off | StarTribune.com

[elizabethjk]

It appears to have been a common view. Last year, a breakaway group banded together to form a rival union: National Nurses United (NNU). In just a few months, it has grown to 155,000 members, approaching the century-old ANA's 180,000. It is now mobilizing across the country with one major goal: limits on the number of patients assigned to each nurse. Union leaders say nurses are stretched so thin that patients are in danger.

Seriously, not something someone with a LICENSE should be sitting on. I would be out there if I could!!

[HippieBuddhistNurse]

I totally support the striking nurses. Anyone who has seen the chronic under-staffing in hospitals should realize we need better nurse / patient ratios.

[dlatimer]

I agree with the strike 100%. I completely sympathize having been fired 3 days after expressing my solicited opinion regarding the very same problems. I have been a nurse over 30 years and worked at hospitals over 27 years and because I sought treatment for alcohol addiction the board of nursing placed me on probation. Which I didn't mind. I could work within the disciplinary restrictions, but no hospital will hire anyone on probation.

Who is running healthcare? Can we trust the bankers to run the economy? Who is actually looking out for the ill, the ones most vulnerable? We all need to express our opinion and from this data discern our priorities. There is a lot of talk and I am proud to see someone take action.

[HippieBuddhistNurse]

Sorry to hear about that.

Were you working in a union hospital when you got fired?

I am a new grad and trying to my first job.

[dlatimer]

HipBuddha, Non union, 'right to fire' state. Best of luck with work. Try my suggestions. Most of the new grads I worked with either worked as monitor techs or nursing techs. It seems if you show your willingness your chances are greater. It's really funny. I was going to go back to school for a masters degree in nursing and they wouldn't let me enroll because I was on probation. Instead I'm working on IT degree.

[pielęgniarka, RN]

The hospitals want to cut pension contributions and reduce nursing staffing. I feel unions promote a standard for workload and pay. We should support these nurses, what they are asking is not unreasonable. Nurses and patients deserve a workable caseload.

[Mike the Nurse]

Isn't a nurse striking like abandoning patients? I thought as nurses we took an oath not to abandon our patients? Unions do not belong in professional occupations, that is why they are called "Labor" unions.

[dlatimer]

Mike the Nurse, I understand the hospitals were told ahead of time and evidently oriented and temporarily hired 2800 staff and used 'other administrative personnel'. Pilots aren't professional? The AMA is not registered as a union, but is very active in donating to political campaigns to protect their incomes and increase Medicare payments.

Politics influence everything in my life and patient's lives. I feel an obligation to my children to be involved. Lobbyist dominate the laws of this country. If I am part of a group that wants to promote virtuous principles and working conditions, then I must be active. Because the corporations are very active and virtually write the laws to protect their profit, not patients.

[cjmjmom]

I am surpised there is not more discussion about this historic event.! Here from OHIO I am sending my support to all my nursing colleagues in MN who have the backbone to stand up to administration in defense of safe patient care!

[P_RN, ADN, RN]

i am for minnesota nurses!!! you go guys and gals!!!!!

*_________*

, a replacement nurse from florida, said she will get paid between $1,600 and $1,800 for the one day of work. all of her expenses will also be paid.

let me quote here:

[GadgetRN71, ASN, RN]

I agree with the strike. No one likes to go to a strike first thing, it's fun for no one. While unions(including mine) are by no means perfect, they are needed. I have no sympathy for these hospitals that whine about how hard it is for them when unions are involved..do they not realize that they themselves are responsible for people joining collective bargaining? If they treated nurses like human beings in the first place, they wouldn't be in this mess.