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/

[BackfromRetirement]

I totally agree with the nurses on strike. Living in a "work-at-will" state, employers have too much power to put the patients at risk, and the nursing license on trial.

[Conqueror+, BSN, RN]

I am from Florida(right to fire state) but after working in union facilities for 5 years in Pennsylvania, I see the difference in how unionized nurses are treated and it's like night and day. The fact that you have recourse prevents employers from pulling all kinds of crap because they KNOW that the union is there so they don't even try it. The 5,000 a year in commitment free tuition reimbursement(used for everything from excelsior exams to dance lessons) and yearly uniform allowance didn't hurt either. My dues of 30 bucks a month were well worth it.

[UM Review RN, ASN, RN]

replacement nurses hired at most hospitals

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chris williams, associated press writer

posted: 6:57 pm mdt june 9, 2010updated: 3:17 pm mdt june 10, 2010

minneapolis -- more than 12,000 nurses launched a one-day strike thursday at 14 minnesota hospitals in a dispute over nurse-patient ratios levels and pension benefits.

nurses say they are being asked to care for too many patients at a time, and strict ratios are necessary to protect patient safety. the hospitals, all in the minneapolis area, counter that patients are safe and that the walkout is a headline-grabbing stunt to build membership and clout for a national nurses union.

about the same number of nurses had planned a simultaneous strike in california over the same issues, but were blocked temporarily earlier this week by a san francisco judge.

the minnesota nurses walked off the job at 7 a.m. and onto picket lines at several sites. at abbott northwestern hospital near downtown minneapolis, one nurse serenaded several hundred others by playing "amazing grace" on bagpipes. passing motorists honked horns, and red t-shirted nurses waved signs that read, "we care. for you" and "rns protecting patients."

sue stamness, a cardiology nurse at abbott for 24 years, said patient safety was the nurses' top concern.

http://www.kfoxtv.com/news/23852225/detail.html

[msnurse14]

Being form Minnesota and watching the job boards over the last 1 1/2 years, I completely agree with the nursing strike. If there is a true nursing shortage those hospitals have had hiring freezes for quite a while. Consistent understaffing with decrease in benefits should rock the boat. Nurses work hard!!! Union or not we need more unity and less separatism when it come to the nursing field.

[UM Review RN, ASN, RN]

My apologies, first time I saw this thread.

I believe that nurses should have rights, too. We're not asking to be able to come to work and sit around at the desk all day; we're asking that we have manageable patient loads based on acuity, so that NOBODY DIES.

When will people get it?

Rock on, MN nurses!!

[RetRN77]

My experience with unions was brief and disagreeable. After graduating from a hospital's diploma program in my home state of OH, I left to be with my husband who was in the army in another state. There, I worked as a civilian at a military hospital and had no major problems. Once he was separated from the service, we returned to OH and I began working at my "home" hospital. Things had not changed much there; the same supervisors who lorded over the day shift were still known as the "white witches." This was the early 70's and staffing quickly became an issue as freezes were instituted. When NA's left, we were to pick up the slack and they were not replaced. When fellow RN's left, they were slowly replaced, then later, some were not replaced. Patient load was a constant outcry. No one in admin cared. When people called off, nurses from med/surg floors were circulated up to specialty units like L&D, where they were fish out of water and vice versa. This practice, which had always been a last-ditch effort, now had become a daily fact of life, and was endangering the patients.

Then along came the union. Nurses were at odds about voting them in; some felt they would not strike no matter what; others were ready to walk out in a NY minute. I felt in the middle: the patients deserved better than an understaffed facility whose nurses were often unfamiliar with their tasks, but I also felt my duty was to my patients and that I should not walk out. Admin did not listen to our pleas regarding staffing and thus avert a vote on the union, and instead sent in a "negotiator" who talked down to us as if we were children and told us we had no idea what the big bad union was all about. This riled us no end and backfired. Finally, most of us felt that we needed some leverage in the staffing situation and that was the ultimate reason the union got our votes.

Nearly everyone said they would not strike over money. "Money is not the issue. Patient care is the issue." Within a few weeks a strike was called, citing salary disputes. After the strike, those who had been friends since NS were no longer speaking to each other. Morale was horrible and no one trusted each other any more. I was fortunate that I had left the hospital shortly before the strike and subsequently moved out of state.

Twenty some years later, my mother was hospitalized at our "home" hospital for spinal surgery and I went to care for her. The day of surgery, her bell was not answered in less than ten minutes directly on her return to the floor. The next time she rang, the wait was twenty minutes, and after that, it was 40 or more minutes for an immobilized 73-year-old post-surgical patient! She missed her dinner because no one got around to ordering it even though at least 3 nurses were aware of the situation. She nearly called me at midnight to take her home "before they kill me" because she not only got no dinner, she could not get a bedpan, which, of course, was the reason she was using the bell in the first place. The unionized hospital was even more dreadfully understaffed. We later learned about the over-scheduling and under-staffing from a nurse who was just about too tired to even speak. I think she said she'd worked something like 5 12-hour shifts in a row, and not out of choice. I never even saw an NA - I don't know what had become of them.

A year or so later, my aunt was hospitalized. My mother, also a retired RN who'd also worked about 20 years in that same hospital, visited her in the late afternoon and found her untouched meal tray out of her reach, and my aunt completely disoriented and barely aware. No one came by, no one tried to feed her. My mom fed her and thereafter went in daily at lunchtime to make sure my aunt got at least one meal daily until her discharge, and wound up doing much of the "morning" care as well, since it was never done when my mom arrived at noon. I'm not exaggerating when I say my mom was afraid my aunt would not survive if she didn't go in and take care of her herself, because she rarely, if ever, saw a nurse come into the room. She said she even had to empty the bedside commode herself every day, because it was in danger of overflowing!

The result of the unionization at my hospital is that they are collecting dues while patient care, nursing and nursing morale are in a deplorable state. This hospital used to be the best in the region - I never would have been a patient anywhere else in times long past. Now I would scream bloody murder if you tried to get me in there.

IMO, unions are businesses of self-interest. They had a place in a past time, but now their interest is in self-perpetuation. Nurses definitely need recourse, but in my experience, the union did not supply it. I hate to have to admit that the troll who told us we had no idea what the big, bad union would do to us was right.

I would not like to be a patient in MN on that day when those "temporarily hired 2800 staff and 'other administrative personnel'" are taking over the CCUs.

[PACNWNURSING]

Awesome good for them!!! They are getting to the heart why nurses are unhappy and leave the nursing profession ,which in turn causes this so called nursing shortage.

Largest Ever Nurses' Strike Could Be Sign of Future Unrest

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/723437

[RN1980]

bogus responses to the newspaper regarding the strike are prolly a bunch of whinny med students somewhere from that area. I agree,,i would care less what the average joe thinks of the strike, though i'd would want support from the local community if i could get it. people just dont understand that the average hospital ceo really pays no mind to who suffers or who gets injured in their hospital as long as crap dont hit the fan and the hospital reputation dont take a hit or a suit gets filed. its all about stocks and bonds and company cars and bonuses and financial packages..

[azhiker96, BSN, RN]

Isn't a nurse striking like abandoning patients? I thought as nurses we took an oath not to abandon our patients?

Hi Mike. No, a strike is not like abandoning patients. If I show up to strike, I will not be taking report which means I have not established the nurse/patient relationship. The off-going shift would give report either to temp RNs hired by the hospital or to their supervisor so they are not abanoning patients either.

I've never joined a union and really think there are better ways to get realistic nurse/patient ratios. My professional organization (ASPAN) publishes standards for care in the PACU. Those standards include nurse/patient ratios based on patient acuity. If my department did not schedule safe staffing levels then they would open the hospital up to liability in the case of a poor outcome.

State legislatures and boards of nursing should be lobbied for safe staffing laws. Anyway, I hope the MN nurses are successful in their efforts to get safe staffing levels.

[NeedchangeofPace]

Mention a strike and folks automatically assume it has to do with greed.

Most folks don't bother reading articles...'specially if it's a long one.

...and it contains words that have more than 2 syllable's:smokin:

[mom2cka]

I actually attempted to post this under 'Nursing News' but the moderators must have felt it didn't belong - don't quite understand that. If anything, this is certainly as newsworthy as one more story about the RN shortage...

[HM2VikingRN, RN]

As an AFGE member in MN I am fully in Solidarity with MNA.