Nurse organizing in Houston

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Feb 14, 2008

:welcome: Welcome to our online community!

I've moved your post to the Texas Nurses forum with the hopes of amassing replies from people who live and work in the Houston metropolitan area. Good luck to you!

TinyNurse, RN · Feb 15, 2008

I'm in Houston at the moment and haven't heard about any organizing here. Let me know if you find out anything!!!

On the other hand, cyfair aka cypress fairbanks is a great ER to work in. I worked agency there a few years ago. I've heard that alot of their staff left because of a new hospital that was built, paying big money a few years ago.

RNJanet · Feb 25, 2008

Thanks Tiny Nurse. I haven't heard anything else so I've got nothing to share.

RNJanet · Mar 6, 2008

The rumors I heard were true!!!

News Mar 4th, 2008 @ 10:37 PM

California union moving into Texas hospital - RNs fight back

By hou_chris

According to This Week in Houston, the California Nurses Association is making a move to unionize the Registered Nurses (R.N.s) at the Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center. Cypress Fairbanks is a 185 bed community hospital in Northwest Houston.

Registered Nurse, Machel Oswalt says, "We were blindsided by this because, unfortunately, the union works by gagging our management staff. This makes our managers unable to discuss anything about the union with us. They are unable to educate us in any way. So, several of us have done our homework and researched for hours to become educated about the union. We have discovered the union is making numerous verbal promises without written guarantees and nurses are falling for this. Many of the things they are promising us, we already have. We have made multiple attempts to meet in our hospital to educate staff about the union. These meetings were educational only, not anti-union. The union blocked these meetings. We feel that denying us the right to meet in our facility to educate staff about the union is a violation of our First Amendment Rights. They are taking away our voice and our freedom of speech."

labcat01, BSN, RN · Mar 7, 2008

I don't understand - how does the union even get in there if none of the nurses want it AND what is the deal with the California Nurses Union coming to Texas?? It doesn't seem like anyone wants them here.

P.S. Don't flame me- I just really don't understand this stuff and I don't know what the motives are for trying to unionize in Texas.

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Mar 7, 2008

P.S. Don't flame me- I just really don't understand this stuff and I don't know what the motives are for trying to unionizing Texas.

They're not out to unionize Texas (correct me if I'm wrong). They are attempting to unionize just this one particular facility.

zamboni · Mar 8, 2008

An EMS service that I used to work for in the DFW area tried to unionize back in 2000 (gawd, what a jacked up little chapter of my life that fiasco was!). I learned a few things about Texas labour and how unions have the power that they do.

Texas is a "right to work" state. They can fire you at any time, just as you can quit whenever you want. One can argue the pros and cons ad nauseum...but the fact is, that's what we have.

The only way a union in Texas has any power to go against that is if they are HUGE, and are an intregal part of that industry nationwide. Take the big GM Motors plant in Arlington...the way I understand it is, technically, GM can fire any one of those employees whenever they want, and the state would back them. However, they choose to abide by union negotiations and contracts. Why? Because the Autoworkers Union owns them in Detroit, and there is no doubt in anyone's mind that if management started turning their backs on the folks in Texas, the Detroit (and other unionized cities with plants) workers and union leaders would be up in arms, and GM certainly couldn't afford that (especially in these economic times). It's the same with other companies like UPS. From what I gathered, these union employees in Texas get the "perks" that their brothers and sisters have established many years ago in states with much stronger union laws.

Would nurses in California be willing to go on strike for their coworkers at a 185 bed hospital in Texas? Would they be willing to cripple healthcare in their state for a Texas hospital? Would the administration of the Texas hospital care if Cali nurses were mad about something? Is the Cali union strong enough to have pull in Texas?

In my situation, some of us figured out real quick that the little band of EMS workers in Colorado didn't give two flips about us, and even if they did, nobody here cared what they thought. Another consideration is, IMO, most Texans aren't too friendly on unions in their state, and tend to be very anti-union and thus, unsympathetic to the cause. Our service ended up voting the union in (for some reason that I will never understand). The citizens of the city thought of us as a bunch of whiners that couldn't keep our jobs on our own merit (yes, we all got lumped together) and when it came time for our company to rebid the 911 contract, it was awarded to the city fire department and everyone lost their jobs anyway.

Anyway, that's just this Texan's experience with unions. I'm not really anti or pro union. I think that they do have a place in some industries in some regions. I just want to suggest that anyone in Texas that is contemplating this think long and hard and do objective research as to exactly HOW a proposed union would be able to fufill it's promises.

(Dang guys...that was way longer than I intended. More like therapy of repressed memories! But if you think that was long...try reading union bylaws! LOL!)

Tom Sullivan · Mar 12, 2008

I'm in Houston. Just heard that the NNOC filed paperwork to hold an election for all cyfair nurses.

unhappycf · Mar 22, 2008

I'm in Houston. Just heard that the NNOC filed paperwork to hold an election for all cyfair nurses.

I am a nurse working at CyFair Hospital. Yes it is true, the UNION has arrived at CyFair and many of us are not happy about it. We will be voting on March 28th and 29th. It has caused lots of stress and has turned some employees against others just because we all have different opinions. NNOC has blocked nurses from meeting with each other at our facility yet they are able to have a room several days a week to present their literature. I can't wait until the vote is over so they can go back to California.