would you cross a picket line????

Nurses Activism

Published

Yesterday one of my nursing coworkers told me about some strike in OHIO and that she was going to take a travel assignment to that area..... I am totally happy where I am, but I was kinda wondering what that atmosphere would be like...I feel that everyone deserves healthcare and can understand her position that she goes where the money is but, crossing a picket line???? I just do not think I could do it. Obviously those nurses are in extreme duress to have to strike.....So, what do you all think could you cross a picket line????? I do not think I could.

Lets put that in perspective:

You can earn the same kind of money to support your family by working all those OT hrs in any legitimate agency at facilities that are not conducting an RN strike - and where you wouldnt be hurting other nurses in the process - but you choose to work them at places where RNs are on strike - and then call that "supporting my family".

Sometimes the strike involves a demand for better wages & compensation for those RNs. The hospital can resist that if it has strikebreakers working. So, do you think its right for you to come in & help the RNs lose salary & compensation improvements that they need to support THEIR families, while you rake it in for your family - at the expense of these RNs?

(and then say you "support" them???)

There is enough work out there for you to work endlesslly for a couple of weeks at a hospital where the nurses are not on strike, like you would as a strikebreaker, & all the OT you rack up would bring you to the same salary. During strikes, agency recruiters even come to our strike lines with applications to sign the striking nurses up for their agencies for temp work. There is enough work for you to support your family without interferring with other RNs efforts to support their own.

You can certainly support your family - and even earn those big bucks someplace else - without helping to bring down other RNs.

There is no excuse for any RN to cross an RNs strike line.

Peeps.... (I don't know if you were talking to Tom or me, but I'll respond to your short staff, mandatory overtime and a .25 cent raise question)

1. Short staffing is a fact of life due to the fact we have a nursing shortage. (If there ain't any bodies, you ain't got no staff...no matter what you pay or if you have a union or not) We live with it and do our best either by using agency nurses or adding on support staff...and sometimes we close beds or the ER. Not a great answer to the problem, I know, but sometimes the only answer.

2. Our hospital has never had mandatory OT and as long as our current VP/Nsg is here, we never will.

3. Our last salary adjustment was....3% across the board increase (for all nurses), 4%-6% merit increase (depending on evaluation), 5% for longevity (over 15 years of employment), and another 5% for over 20 years employment. So, as of July 1 our nurses got between 7% to 19% increase. (I got 9% because I've only been here for 11 years...but I'm not complaining.)

Peeps - there are hospitals that are not union hospitals & that involve their RNs in the decision making that affects their practice, shares control with them, includes them policy making, values them & respects them & shows it, does not abuse them with mandatory ot, floating to unfamiliar areas, nor burdens them with unsafe & unmanageable pt laods. These hospitals also compensate the RNs well & provide high quality benefits. These are the things that RNs unionize to achieve, so if a hospital is already doing it, the RNs will have no need to unionize - until the administration takes it all away whenever it feels like it. Anyway, these hospitals have no shortages - in fact some of them have waiting lists of RNs who want to work for them - while all the other hospitals around them have shortages. These hospitals have no problem finding RNs to fill their staff positions because of their efforts at retention that I just listed above. These are called "best practices" and are the model for Magnet Award winning hospitals. So hes right. There are hospitals that are doing it right - if there were more of them, nurses wouldnt be bolting from the bedsides.

But there is no shortage of nurses right now. 500,000 licensed nurses are out there & just not working in nursing because hospitals WONT do these things. If more of them did, alot of these nurses would come back to work & the "bodies" would be there - just as they are in the hospitals that have waiting lists of nurses who want to work at those Best-Practices facilities.

There is no reason to just shrug our shoulders about short staffing & live with the staffing shortages. There is every reason to make a concerted effort to vastly improve the working conditions & entice some of the hundreds of thousands of non working RNs back.

There is a reason why people that cross picket lines are called scabs. That is exactly what is inflicted-deep long festering wounds. I have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that the delusional suits where I work are going to force us out again this fall. I say force because they simply refuse to negotiate. They are convinced that we are well staffed (110 OT spots per shift for 3 straight months now! and that is just on my unit) and don't seem to be counting the hundrerds of thousands that they are blowing out the window on Agency staff by not participating in good faith bargaining and by having no retention/recruitment incentives. They truly have their heads in the sand. I will vote yes just as I did 9 years ago and I will honor that line every day just like I did 9 years ago. This time I won't be as nice about it and neither will my colleagues.

None of us here want to be forced away from the bedside. We all became nurses to help people throught the best and worst times of their lives. I wish I worked in a facility that had such great working conditions that we didn't need a union but there is no such animal within a 50 mile plus radius of where I live and there are tons of hospitals in my area.

Words of advice: Don't be a patient or a nurse in a striking hospital in my neck of the woods. It's just a bad situation for all concerned.

Tom, I agree with -jt and Peeps. There is no excuse for crossing any picket line. There are more honest and noble ways to make a buck rather than knifing a fellow professional in the back and enabling the suits to prolong the strike. Just my opinion. Having been there and done that strike wise, I can tell you proof positive that the scabs enabled our strike to last as long as it did. Had no one crossed for whatever lame excuse you want to dream up, our strike would have ended in a week or less.

Specializes in ER, ICU, L&D, OR.

Howdy yall

from deep in the heart of texas

Well jt and fedupnurse as for yall being hardcore union supporters fornursing thats fine. I respect that. But remember Im in Texas, and there is not an inkling of unionization for nurses here because the unions are unable to get even a toehold in this state as far as nursing goes, and they wont be able to in the forseeable future as this is a hardcore republican state, and george Bush and the good ole boys who run things and will continue to run things will not allow it to happen. But I do respect yalls choices in how to conduct your lives. This a Free country with freedom of choice.

My choice seeing as unionization has no impact on me here in Texas is to do what is right for me. And I would expect the same courtesy from yall in supporting what my decisions are in regards to my beliefs. I will cross a picket line to line my pockets, and why shouldnt I. Again this is a free nation, rather capitalistic in nature but it is who we are. If I feel this is right for me then, so be it.

I will respect your freedom of choice, please at least be courteous enough to respect my freedom of choice.

And by the way let me know if these strikes are going to happen. I could use some extra money for christmas.

love ya both and respect your beliefs.

But this isnt history when coal miners were shot for striking in the past. this is now.

Specializes in ER, ICU, L&D, OR.

Howdy yall

from deep in the heart of texas

Jt, yes Ive paid my dues, not to a union but to the realities of life , to my family, and to my nation, and to society at large. And if you cant see where those are dues, how about when I served as a hospital corpsman in the military. Those all seem like dues to me. We all pay dues some each in our own way. I respect the dues you have paid, again, respect the dues I have paid in my own way.

Specializes in ER, ICU, L&D, OR.

Howdy yall

from deep in the heart of texas.

Well jt, you said to work OT in a facility to make extra money. I do that also. But there is one problem inherent in that. And that is they take more out in taxes as you go into a higher bracket.

Now Im not against paying Taxes, but why should I pay more and penalize myself for working OT.

Peeps. I was trying to think of something nice to say to you. But instead I will just ignore you. And that is the nicest way.

Dear Tom,

You must realize that as a human being you have limitations set upon you by societal expectations of moral behavior. Persons within those moral boundries will expect that you join them in order to be counted as part of society.

I've been thinking about you Tom. Please consider:

Cognitive Dissonance:

Leon Festinger (1957),

refers to an individual's motivation to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) caused by two inconsistent thoughts. We might feel uneasy about a discrepancy that exists between our attitudes and our behavior. The absence for the internal justification for the difference between what we believe and what we do creates dissonance (Harmon-Jones & Mills, 1999), Psychology Santrock 2000.

I think there is some dissonance your experiencing as can be evidenced by your effort to justify what you are doing outside of the moral boundries of society. Earning money is not a moral issue. You must consider what is, I'm not going to draw that line for you.

"We justify the negative things we do in life. We need to convince ourselves that we are decent, reasonable human beings." and this is where I make a point I think will communicate what I see Tom, "We also have a strong need to justify the effort we put forth in life. We positively evaluate goals that require considerable effort.(in your case,security for your family from an honest, hard days work) Whether we reach the goals or not, we engage in the process of effort justification. The reasoning goes like this: If we work hard to attain a goal(pay our dues) but then evaluate that goal in a negative way,dissonance would occur. If we put forth considerable effort, yet still do not reach the goal, (an honest days wages) how could we reduce the dissonance? We could convince ourselves that we did not work as hard as we actually did, or we could say that the goal was not all that important in the first place." Santrock (2000).

I believe that your goal in the begining was to just be a great nurse, and earn a secure living for your family, while promoting the profession with your expertise and work ethic. I think you believed that(as we all did at one time) you would work your way up and someday earn the respect and wages you deserved.............and when that didn't happen within an acceptable time in your career moral structure started to collapse against the pressure of constant effort justification............. or rather dissonance.

"Our most intense justifications of our actions take place when our self-essteem is involved" (Aronson, 1999)

Anyone that knows me will tell you that I don't take to psychology much, but when I read this I was so encouraged by what it said that I just had to share the insight.

I will respect your freedom of choice, please at least be courteous enough to respect my freedom of choice. >

The difference is that you can respect my choice of being part of a nursing union because where I choose to work & how I work doesnt affect you. However, when you cross my strike line & help give my employer the tools it needs to fight against me to avoid making the workplace improvements me & my pts & my family need, you are directly harming me & you dont seem to care about that at all because you achieve monetary gain from harming me. How can I be expected to respect your choice?

You say "I will cross a picket line to line my pockets, and why shouldnt I?". The answer is because by doing that, youre hurting me! Another RN with a family to provide for. And that should be enough of a reason why not to do it.

We're here telling you the real effects of what youre actions do to us & youre basically saying "I dont care how it hurts you or what it does to you - it puts money in MY pocket, so the hell with you."

Theres nothing to be respected in that.

And why should you come up here to cross my strike line & penalize me? Possibly costing me the ability to obtain safer staffing, eliminate forced overtime, and earn better compensation for myself?

You ask us to give you courtesy for your choices - well, I am not interferring with your work in Texas or how you manage your workplace for yourself - I would appreciate the same courtesy from you. But when you cross my strike line, you are demanding courtesy for yourself while refusing to give the same to me.

I respect your choice to work in any field you want to work in - except when your choice has a direct negative impact on me.

Since youre in favor of obtaining the most for oneself, Im sure you can understand not respecting or appreciating someone who prevents you from doing exactly that.

And as a member of the military, Im sure you also understand about being "in it" together. What would you think of some of your military buddies if they were providing the hand grenades to the opposing forces against you while you & the rest of your company were desparately trying to get out of the foxhole & take the hill?

Teed up by Tom

Now Im not against paying Taxes, but why should I pay more and penalize myself for working OT.

There are no state taxes in Texas.

Here on the East coast even the friggin county has thier hand in your pocket. I'm taxed at around 20% and I'm claiming 2 dependants:confused: In Texas I was paying around 12%, so you're about 8% ahead in taxes (6%from state and 2% from county).

Still the psychology of it interests me. Imagine that, you've unwittingly peaked my interest in a part of nursing that previously bugged me.

I suppose now you're going to tell us your a psych nurse!:chuckle

Specializes in ER, ICU, L&D, OR.

Howdy yall

from deep in the heart of texas

Well peeps, Im glad I peeked you interest, and yes I pay a lot in federal taxes and everything else. Yes texas has no state tax, yet it rates nearly the highest in the nation for property tax rates. And let us not forget the sales tax. And the list can go on. Taxation is one of our guaranteed rights.So what else is new.

Im not a psych nurse, Im a ER nurse with all the battle scars to prove it.

+ Add a Comment