Nurses unionize to improve patient care

[herring_RN, ASN, BSN]

... America's nurses are on the march-literally and figuratively.

Consider just two recent developments:

* In Minnesota, 12,000 nurses from 14 hospitals walked off the job for a day last month, the largest such action in US history, in a bid to improve staffing levels and to secure standardized nurse-patient ratios.

* In Texas, almost 2,000 nurses at five hospitals voted to form unions in a two-week period ending in June. this was particularly notable because Texas has the third largest number of RNs in the country-after California and New York-but previously only one private hospital in Texas was organized....

... nurses have been unionizing not to secure bigger salaries for themselves-but rather to improve patient care. They contend that a collective voice will help them advocate for patients while protecting their jobs as they do so.

This effort, they say, has become all the more important with the increasing corporatization and bottom-line orientation of the medical profession.

Staff reductions aimed at cost-cutting have raised patient-to-nurse ratios even as greater demands are placed on remaining nurses, allowing them less time and flexibility to care for their patients....

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/12/dine-nurses-unionize-to-improve-patient-care/

[dgenthusiast]

It has a lot to do with money and less to do with patient care.

[Jstand]

It has a lot to do with money and less to do with patient care.

Very true. It is alot like when physicians threaten to stop caring for Medicare patients if reimbursment rates are cut. Despicable, isn't it?

[viral2010]

If they cut your salary by 21%, would you continue to work just out of the goodness of your heart?

[Jstand]

If they cut your salary by 21%, would you continue to work just out of the goodness of your heart?

Check your facts. Nobody has proposed to cut physician salaries by 21%.