Nursing Revolution

First of all, I hope you are still in the nursing profession. Of course, if you are not still in the nursing profession, it is obvious why. Nursing, as it exists today, is designed to burn people out. The rule of the owners of the various places where nurses work is this: use as few nurses as possible to get all the work done, regardless of the impact that it will have on the quality of the care being given to the patients. I have been an RN, BSN since 1996 and it has been, at times, a very difficult career. Does anyone remember Laura Gasparis Vonfrolio, RN, PhD? She organized a Nurses March in Washington DC back in 1995 and at least 10,000 nurses showed up! I went to the next Nurses March and fewer nurses showed up, but it was still an inspirational event. She also used to publish Revolution: The Journal of Nurse Empowerment. I think it has been the goal of both the corporations that own hospitals/nursing homes and the government to reduce nursing to be nothing more than an easily exploited blue collar job. But in the end, this will hurt the community and the nursing profession too. The only thing left for nurses to do will be to ban together in blue collar-like unions that will go on strike to get what they want. This will cost the corporations more money, and they will pass this expense onto the public and the government. It is time for nurses to get together and form a high profile, professional organization that is capable of influencing both the political structure of Washington, DC and educating the public about the hazards of a deteriorating nursing profession in America.

I totally agree with all of you - I've been an RN/BSN since 1990, and can't believe that, even with the current "shortage", they (hospitals/insurance cos/"contract recruiters) continue to keep nurse wages suppressed. As a result of a "nursing injury" I sustained 5 years into my nursing career, I could not go back to high injury risk nursing (ie - bedside/ICU). I've done HHC and also hospital and insurance co case management, as well as LNC over the last few yrs. I wonder....why is it that a case management position requires 5 - 10 years of nursing background in most cases, but pays about 50-60% of a med surg pool/agency or critical care position that in most cases only requires one year of med/surg background? I find this repulsive. Recently, a recruiter called me about a nurse case mgmt/call center position, and told me that it paid in the "low 20's hourly". When I informed him that this pay was "really low" for an RN, he replied "well it's a way for nurses to work outside of the hospital - and it's a really nice office environment....". This is really terrible....and they wonder why nurses are leaving the field????

I am an RN BSN since 1999 and have been working in acute care settings since. Burned out my first year..its safe to say that the system has everything organized so that we are completely oppressed and at the mercy of our employers and the system as they work us to the bone. No one needs anything anywhere...as much as they need a nurse. You see we don't realize this because they break you and turn you into a robot that puts everyone else's needs before your own. Your self worth deteriorates as your spirit fizzles. And they turn other nurses against each other so that they don't trust each other, and will never unite. Its divide and conquer. And the only thing you have to show for all of this is a bad back, sore feet and a mediocre paycheck that just barely satisfies your needs. I am ready to start a revolution and organize a march. If we do not unite, we will continue to be the doormat, instead of being respected as we should be. Nobody is going to respect us until we respect ourselves!

There have been many attempts to organize nursing, and there are some hospitals that do have nurses unions. But most nurses do not belong to a union. When I was in orientation, they showed us a video that demonstrated via actors how a union organizer attempts to infiltrate the employees at a nursing facility and convince them to join a union. Obviously, my employer wants to discourage anyone to join a union. The actor who played the union organizer was very insistent that everyone who was secretly meeting with him understood how important it was to get every employee to sign an agreement which would legally allow the union to represent the employee. The video definitely was demonizing anyone who represents a union. But in the not-to-distant future, the unionization of nursing may be the only way that nurses will be able to protect patients. Right now, there are nursing homes that have nurses with the task of giving out medications to as many as 30 patients! I know, I used to work at one! I actually had to pass meds out to 32 patients and be the shift supervisor at the same time! But because of the lack of Medicaid and Medicare funds, the nurse to patient ratio will eventually get worse. And with so many nursing specialties and the resistance to unionization by some employers as well as some nurses, it will be a long time, if ever, before there is a national nurses union.

The NNU is the nearest thing we have to a national nurses union , whose philosophy is to represent the bedside RN .

I wonder as to the legality of showing those anti union videos .