Nursing home firing oldest nurses.

learninmama · Dec 27, 2009

Get out while you can!! I know a friend of mine was an admin in LTC when it was purchased by a new company he was informed that his job needed to come before family period. Needless to say 5 minutes later he was packing up his office. He's lucky he did as the new owners started picking off all the long term employees one at a time for the smallest infractions...whether they were real or not. It's not worth the risk hanging around! Especially when a license is at stake!

gonzo1, ASN, RN · Dec 27, 2009

If all of you get together perhaps you can file an age discrimination suit

chelynn · Dec 27, 2009

The OP does not mean oldest as in age but oldest as in employed longer.

Midwest4me · Dec 27, 2009

Sad, sad, sad! Yet another reason to get these LTCs unionized!

CapeCodMermaid, RN · Dec 27, 2009

Here's another point of view: Perhaps the long term employees were not working as hard or as fast or as well as they should and it took a fresh set of eyes to see that. Unions are only for bad employees who can't stand on their own.

want2banurse35 · Dec 27, 2009

Or that their salaries are the highest and once they get rid of them they can hire people at a lower payrate.

Midwest4me · Dec 28, 2009

here's another point of view: perhaps the long term employees were not working as hard or as fast or as well as they should and it took a fresh set of eyes to see that. unions are only for bad employees who can't stand on their own.

gosh, capecodmermaid, where do you get the idea that unions are only for "bad employees who can't stand on their own"?

we have thousands of employees in our union; i cannot believe that all of us would be considered "bad". management has violated policies numerous times, used forms of threats towards those that they dislike for one reason or another; had it not been for the union, many, many employees would've been screwed in many job aspects. unions, by and large, keep management in line! also, if we'd not had a union to stand up for us during this past contract negotiation, we'd have had to take 22-24 unpaid leave days(instead of 10-14) over the next 20 months.

CapeCodMermaid, RN · Dec 28, 2009

The union I deal with protects jobs regardless of how bad the employee is. If they are abusive to residents the union stands up for them. If they are horrible, unsafe nurses the union stands up for them. Am I and the other managers unfair? NO. We try to get the best nurses and CNAs we can but we can do little to rid ourselves of horrible employees...we write them up again and again and then end up in arbitration.

Midwest4me · Dec 28, 2009

the union i deal with protects jobs regardless of how bad the employee is. if they are abusive to residents the union stands up for them. if they are horrible, unsafe nurses the union stands up for them. am i and the other managers unfair? no. we try to get the best nurses and cnas we can but we can do little to rid ourselves of horrible employees...we write them up again and again and then end up in arbitration.

well, it is unfortunate and very wrong when truly abusive and/or unsafe employees continue to retain their jobs. however, the union does good things (as i described in my earlier post). there have been times when employees stand up for themselves, speak their minds, report unsafe behavior, report violations by peers. those peers never seem to suffer any discipline....due to being some manager's favorite. in fact, the one who reported the wrong-doer is the one who suffers retaliation(by the manager as well as the wrong-doer) and that is when it's nice to have a union.

shiccy · Dec 28, 2009

That's the scariest part of working for a place that doesn't have an HR department. If it does, then you can fight it fully. If you're dismissed without cause, then obtaining a lawyer for wrongful termination is your only recourse.

An example to give you is if you receive writeups and they're for menial things that are not documented thoroughly, then you have a right to fight it. If it's something that has been happening for a long time and is something that keeps getting worse in their eyes, they've talked to said people before, and nothing is changing, then they have a right to fire a person.

The thing is, unless they CATCH you doing or have ABSOLUTE evidence of something unspeakable (such as pure patient abuse, diverting narcotics or other meds from patients, etc.) and illegal, then they have full right to terminate you. If you make an oopsie on documentation (forget to do a Braden skin assessment, etc), then they will have to have TONS of documentation saying you're not a good nurse. If your friends have had terminations for documentation errors, tell them to lawyer up. If they win, they'll be glad they did. ... and the former employer won't be ABLE to put a black mark on their records!

If you are really concerned about it, though, DON'T sweat it. Keep your cool. Don't let anybody know you're finding a new job, and do the right thing (give them ample time to find replacements). This way they aren't able to say anything against your job ethics and/or bad mouth you in any way (even though they technically and legally aren't allowed to in most or all states)

Emergency RN · Dec 28, 2009

the union i deal with protects jobs regardless of how bad the employee is. if they are abusive to residents the union stands up for them. if they are horrible, unsafe nurses the union stands up for them. am i and the other managers unfair? no. we try to get the best nurses and cnas we can but we can do little to rid ourselves of horrible employees...we write them up again and again and then end up in arbitration.

well, if we're going to do that, maybe we should just get rid of the bill of rights and us constitution, too?

frankly, i rather take my chances with a union in place, because in just about every job that i've ever seen without one, they treat employees unfairly. i would settle for the short duration of bad employees being kept around longer and getting their day in court (or binding arbitration) than risk bad employers perpetually taking advantage of their good workers. the bad employee can still be gotten rid of; a union simply ensures due process and objective fairness, for both good and bad employees. arbitration is not a free pass, but a fact finding process by an independent party. so if an employee is really bad, their discharge is generally upheld. your "...again and again, only to end up in arbitration..." sounds like management loses every time it takes its case before an independent third party. perhaps your rationales for discharge really aren't fair and the arbitrator catches you at it, and he chooses to protect the innocent worker instead. :up:

and don't even get me started on horrible unsafe nurse managers, who care little about either patients or nurses; they bombard their subordinates with overloaded or unreasonable assignments so long as they keep their bosses happy, and thus their own jobs secure. unions do a vital job in protecting honest nurses and defenseless patients from these unethical, uncaring, self serving and ruthless managers who really are nothing more than just employer hired thugs with an rn license. :down: :angryfire

any nurse manager, who is ethical, above board, honest, and true to the nightingale pledge would never be afraid of a nurses' union. the op's post regarding the shabby treatment of senior nurses is exactly the reason why nursing unions are vital to our profession. my suggestion to the op is to go to the newspapers and television. call your congressman and state senator. call any senior citizen association and tell them your concerns about senior experienced nurses being fired for no reason, putting senior citizens at risk. make it to be the stinking public mess that the bosses don't want it to be.

support your nurses unions! :yeah: