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/

[Conqueror+, BSN, RN]

The lack of responses to this topic is a great indicator of what is wrong with nursing as a profession. It ain't me so I don't really care.

[worldtraveler]

Pageant--Historically this Apathy has been a Big Problem in the Nursing Profession. Nurses over the past have refused to speak up in a collective voice for the most part. They complain amongst themselves in the breakroom but not in a unified voice where they would see results. Its pretty obvious the Large Corporations are NOT going to give a Raise in Nurses Pay and realistic Nurse to Patient staffing ratios which would mean less money for their CEOs who earn Million Dollar Salaries. The Problem will continue until Nurses nationwide organize and stand up for their rights. I fully support the Mn Nurses strike. No raise for Staff nurses but they can blow $1600-$1800 per day for PRN Nurses, give me a break!

[stpchc]

I am one of the many MN nurses who is a union member of MNA. Your union is only as strong as its members...so if your union members in Ohio were not involved, this could be why nothing changed after it became unionized. I for one will not put profits before patients and continue to be the patients' advocate.

[smclendon]

That is why I have stop reading the comment sections of most online news articles. The negative people always put their two cents in - like it helps! I take solace in the fact that most of the commentators are ignorant on the subject and that they are just too stupid to know the difference between their opinions and real facts.

[dlatimer]

I remain puzzled why nurses aren't employed. I wouldn't mention this but I got two phone calls this week from agencies wanting to hire anyone for Texas, California, Florida with ICU experience. I checked the local hospital jobs board and there remains positions open and posted for near a year. I have applied for all these positions. Why would they post them if they don't plan to fill them? Maybe if they post them and continue to run short staffed they can show the regulating and accrediting agencies that they have made efforts to fill those positions, but explain the adequate candidate couldn't be found? Does anyone think this makes sense?

[Rickbos]

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.

If we continue to accept assignments that go beyond a nurse's ability to deliver safe care and do nothing to improve the situation, we are endangering the very patients you feel a nurse that chooses to go on strike, is abandoning. A strike is not something that a nurse enters into lightly. A lot has to happen before most nurses are willing to take to the streets. As for the abandonment issue, a 10 day notice must be given prior to the start date of any such work action. The hospital, in that time period, can bring in staff to replace the striking nurses or they could put some serious effort into dealing with the root cause of the nurses' reason for calling the strike. The management team can deal with it as they see fit and if they choose not to address the reason for the strike, the nurses that go on strike are not abandoning their patients. As you can probably tell.....I support the MNA's strike.

[justami]

Strikes are always a touchy subject regardless of who is striking. I will say though it annoys me to no end that somehow if nurses go on strike the idea that it's "not for the money" always needs to be front and center. Excuse me, nursing is one the hardest jobs out there and the notion that it is some sort of calling and we shouldn't ever expect to make a decent wage for that hard work is for me just beyond words. I like some aspects of being a nurse, however I expect to get paid a decent salary for that work. I am not a nun nor ancillary staff, and just like Doctors expect to make a good wage for what they do, so do I.

Most people would run for the exit within 20 minutes of working as a nurse, the average person has no idea of what is expected and just how many patients a single nurse can be responsible for. I have worked lines in the ER that ran out the building and down the street, how much do people think someone who has to work like that should get paid? It is ridiculous that in this day and age they are still not staffing hospitals with enough nurses and expecting the understaffed to take it and not complain and not expect a higher salary as compensation.

These hospitals need to start hiring more nurses and stop using the recession as some backdoor way to mistreat nurses.

[misssarahRN]

Mike, pt abandonment, defined by my state doesn't occur until after you've accepted the assignment (receiving report and allowing the other nurse to leave) and THEN you walk off the job. Also poor nurse to pt ratios by defacto results in pt abandonment since you are simply one human being. You can't both help someone to the bathroom and give critical heart meds, or what have you, at the same time. Maybe it occurs in numerous small instance throught the week or year but eventually pts. are hurt and some die.

Also, I don't know where you work but nursing is LABOR. We're not sitting in offices watching the clock waiting for lunch. We're running to assess, pass meds (on time mind you!), wipe someone's butt, empty catheter bags/urinals/bed pans, and occasionally being assualted for our troubles.

It's attitudes like yours and the martyrs that nursing is so undervalued (by you and many others). Taking a stand for ourselves, profession and pts is not only couragous, but a vital need!

The poor staffing in my hospital (a mental health hospital) has lead to pts being raped, staff with head trauma and other serious injuries. What do we get for insiting on greater saftey for ourselves and our pts? The response "well you didn't use proper verbal deescaltion" and more frequently the can, meanwhile the hospital rakes in approx. $5K/day/pt, mostly from the government since the majority of our pts are too psychotic to work and receive employer benefits. And we have been full to the gills, including adding more beds, since I started nine months ago.

[dlatimer]

Hospitals are quick to insert the word 'abandon' into any conversation regarding a strike. Hospital administrators and doctors want to keep us busy complaining about trivial stuff. They don't want us to realize one big uncomfortable fact. They must have nurses to care for the patients. No patients, no profit. In desperate times, hospitals can get by without administrators and lots of ancillary personnel, but you can't care for patients without someone who is educated, skilled, communicative and can perform these tasks on several different levels and prioritize. Until we make them understand: "We know we are indispensable." They will continue to play one against the other. Manipulation is a game that nurses excel at. Don't play into their game. Don't let them trivialize our profession. Let them know we know.

[dlatimer]

There may be some media support coming our way. Check out this NYT opinion article: Op-Ed Contributor - Why Lower Nurse-Patient Ratios Matter - NYTimes.com

[Leyla~]

I seriously have to wonder how many posters here actually work in one of the affected MN hospitals. Do you guys have any clue what the staffing situation is here? We have excellent ratios at my hospital and excellent outcomes. Our contract already has language in place to address our staffing matrixes through processes involving floor nurses as well as management.

Twin Cities Hospitals Rigorous Staffing Practices Already in Place

We have 1:1-2 in ICU, 1:4 on med/surgical floors, 1:3 couplets in postpartum, and TONS of staff to provide patient as well as staff safety on our mental health floor. I assume the other floors in our hospital are just as adequately staffed.

We don't need the ratios for patient safety. Mandating the ratios is merely a goal of the NNU, using MN nurses as pawns in their national agenda. The ratios go beyond coverage for patients in the hospital, mandating that hospitals staff to 100 or 115% (depending on the proposal) and forcing hospitals to close units and reschedule surgeries if the floors get to 90%. Does it make sense to staff to 100% while closing at 90%??? Our hospitals are also asking us to mimic floating the way Abbott (a magnet hospital) nurses do. We have a floor that has been averaging 50% capacity, why would they staff it to 100%? Those nurses frequently complete their mandates because staffing doesn't have any options of floating them to floors where they may have sick calls or people willing to take low need. MNA wants "safe staffing" but the nurses aren't willing to float to accommodate. Why?

I am just completely boggled by all this "safe staffing" rhetoric when I don't see it as an applicable cause to get wound up over. The unions are using fear-based tactics, claiming we'll somehow lose our current ratios and have more patients. They extrapolate on hospital language so they can continue these tactics, rather than asking for language clarification from the hospitals.

This isn't even remotely about "safe staffing" for MN hospitals. It's about pushing a national agenda, gaining more membership to the NNU. It's about increasing profits for MNA (by forcing hospitals to hire more nurses at higher wages) and increased profits for the NNU.

If anything we'll have WORSE patient care if these mandated ratios at 100% are implemented. I've heard it will cost hospitals over $80 million just in wages (not benefits) for the extra staff. Where do you think that will come from? Not from the so-called profits. Will it really be better for our patients if we have the same care ratios when we come to work, but no longer have nursing assistants? How about if we have to help clean patient rooms because housekeeping has been cut. Maybe we'll keep our ancillary staff, but have to cope with out of date equipment. Is that better for our patients?

Yes, safe staffing is important. I can't imagine nurses taking on 6-7 patients on a medical/surgical floor. But that is not the situation we are dealing with in Minnesota right now.

[RetRN77]

I'm interested in hearing from nurses who've found their union has conquered staffing concerns at their hospital and ameliorated the other issues mentioned in previous posts which affect patient care. I remain puzzled that after over 30 years of unionization, these problems are still front and center.