Nursing Strike

U.S.A. California

Published

Curious about what my peers think about the nursing strikes in California and the recent pt death.

I am a striking nurse who was locked out of my hospital. I went on strike to keep nursing a career that attracts and keeps the best people. We are trained professionals who love our patients and love being nurses, but the corporate bosses were to treating us like worthless chattel. They presented a long list of takeaways and were unwilling to negotiate over any of it. It is a sad day when nonprofit hospitals start acting like for profit corporations who constantly threaten layoffs and takeaway benefits from nurses and patients while giving themselves fat raises. It felt powerful to unify and take a stand.

However, I am now seriously questioning my right to strike and if indeed I have placed my pts in danger. Oncology is too intense of a practice to view nurses as interchangable commodities. While a mistake could have been made by anyone at any time the reality is less mistakes are likely when nursing is practiced by a consistent team of experienced RN's. My heart goes out to the family of the pt as well as to the traveling RN who made the med error and I am just heartsick over it all.

@ TEXRN...If management or doctor does not like you, they do keep a paper trail and try to find something good to fire you at but can't unless they do.:barf02:

If that didn't make me sick I would laugh!:rotfl:

If management wants to get rid of you and cause you a year of *ell by turning you into the SBN on false claims, they can do it, all they have to do is not investigate and only present what they want to be true and the Board takes the hospital's word as gospel, unless you can afford a lawyer to get to the truth you are sunk.

I could and so after a year of fighting I was cleared with the board; at the hospital I am still listed a a not for hire, this is relayed from HR to other employers who do not want to hire me because of this false accusation on my record, when I earn enough money for the lawyer I might be able to get this taken situation taken care of and make them take it off the record, so I know first hand how someone who doesn't care for you can take your career away, in spite of evidence that it was a personal issue not a work issue.

Brenda you are 100% correct. I keep my nose clean, thus have been lucky but.....some of my worker friends who are so much smarter than I am, have been "worked on" by doctors which means that management has come down hard on them and works at getting them out. Having a union has been the saving grace for these very excellent nurses. This is not a "nurses eat their young". It is "management eating nurses".

Specializes in ICU.

Seriously? Do you think that you striking is really helping nurses through out the country? Its not, please do not believe that the union is a trickling effect the nurses in many other states are not reaping any benifit's from your strike. Yet I don't have any issues if you all do strike that is entirely your business. I just think that someone needs to take care of the patients while you are striking. True? Can we all agree on this point?

Specializes in ICU.
This quote, I swear sounds like management being interviewed for the media. I would respect management, if they could "play fair" & tell the truth, but they don't seem to be able to do that, ever. I am not management, I am a worker, I do the work, I don't make bonuses by saving the company money.

OK, here goes:

1. We were talking about "average" RN salaries, & for you to cite "a per diem nurse on night shift working full time", as "average" salary, is plain out deceptive (but it would fool any non-nurse listener, for sure).

2. Per diem nurses rarely can depend on working full-time, & their hourly salaries are higher than nurses with benefits (obvious reasons)

3. Night shift is not "average".

4. It is a fairly unusual nurse who can work full time nocs - & if he or she can do it, & do a good job - I say she is worth every penny of the figure you quote.

So, I say - shame on you for having to be deceptive to justify what you do for your own personal gain. You seem to forget that nurses generally strike for better, safer working conditions, which is the real way to advocate for patients. Unsafe staffing levels, cutting corners, etc, are a recurring theme for nurses who care for patients daily, and these things are unsafe for all patients, but will never change unless the only people who experience the harm (the nurses) make a stand.

Lol no not media, nor am I management. Just a nurse traveling through. I worked at a single hospital for 14 years then for a magnet hospital the next 5 and decided to travel and figure out where I wanted to retire. When I crossed the picket line I was offered a job.

1.The rate was 63 staff 74 per diem days 83 per diem nights. I don't think I was being deceptive as I stated exactly what the position was. I have also since learned that nurses that work for Kaiser also get insurance for their family's with no copay and get to keep their insurance after they retire another awesome benefit. I talked to Per Diem nurses and they said they get there hours 90% of the time. That was what I would get back home as well working as a staff member. On low senses days one might get budgeted.

2. Night shift IS average. who do you think takes over your patients when you leave? I was under the impression a hospital was open 24 hours sorry for my assumption. Granted all the big wigs and infection control and education nurses have gone home but floor nurses are still there around the clock most of them working full time.

So back to my original concern, if you are striking for safer working conditions for the patients, who is taking care of them when you are on the line? Do not fault me for stepping up and doing what I believe is right as I do not fault you for fighting your cause.:nurse:

Ferge, I had a difficult time understanding what you wrote. Yes, patients are important. Do you expect nurses to take a pay cut, benefit cuts, because of patients needing to be hospitalized? FYI, the strike area had many hospitals that were not involved in the strike to take emergency patients. The Bay Area is extremely populated with more hospitals that can be counted on 10 hands. All hospitals not involved in the strike were ready for extra patients. If nurses continue to bow down to management because patients need care, then nurses will never get ahead financially.

Specializes in ICU.
:jester:

You've got yourself fooled, it's amazing what people can make themselves believe just to justify actions that hurt others. Not the patient, they are shortchanged along with the nurses who care for them on a day to day basis. Even more so durning a strike, especially when the hospital "punishes" the nurses for standing up for themselves buy locking them out. Nurses who strike are not only striking for themselves but for patients and the other nurses in the nation who work hard every day for their families and are under fire everyday in shortstaffed situations for a lot less money; for their risking their families future and their own just to make a living.

Actually I don't think she has herself fooled at all. I think she was just trying to tell you what we go thru to prepare for a strike. What happened to that patient was wrong I don't think anyone can disagree with that on the information that we know. Yet I am not sure how it could of happened. What you fail to realize is this could of happened on the day you strike as well. Pointing fingers at the hospital or the nurses for striking doesn't solve anything. What I am curious is to how it could of happened. and how do we prevent it from happening again.

Specializes in ICU.
:jester:

You've got yourself fooled, it's amazing what people can make themselves believe just to justify actions that hurt others. Not the patient, they are shortchanged along with the nurses who care for them on a day to day basis. Even more so durning a strike, especially when the hospital "punishes" the nurses for standing up for themselves buy locking them out. Nurses who strike are not only striking for themselves but for patients and the other nurses in the nation who work hard every day for their families and are under fire everyday in shortstaffed situations for a lot less money; for their risking their families future and their own just to make a living.

Ferge, I had a difficult time understanding what you wrote. Yes, patients are important. Do you expect nurses to take a pay cut, benefit cuts, because of patients needing to be hospitalized? FYI, the strike area had many hospitals that were not involved in the strike to take emergency patients. The Bay Area is extremely populated with more hospitals that can be counted on 10 hands. All hospitals not involved in the strike were ready for extra patients. If nurses continue to bow down to management because patients need care, then nurses will never get ahead financially.

First off maybe my information is incorrect I thought this was a sympathy strike for other disciplines other then nursing. I also though that their was 23,000 nurses on this strike. It just seemed like a lot more patients could of been at risk if there were complete evacuations of all of the hospitals on strike. Again I have no problem with anyone fighting for what they believe in but I also have always been under the impression that where the strike affects the hospital is in there pocket book for it is not cheap to fly nurses from all over the nation to take care of the patients put them in good hotels supply charter buses food training etc. Hense why I can't understand the animosity against the ones that cross the line. Heck its not like were all working for FORD.

Yet you have given me food for thought if all the patients were moved it would of taken longer then one day and would have hurt the hospital as well. Yet if all the other hospitals took in the patients and increased their censes why would they want to transfer them back? Do you all get paid even if there are no patients or not many to take care of? See I only know my side of the coin, please educate me to your side. As I have said all along I have no grudge for you fighting for what you believe in. My only concern was what happened to the patients while the strike happened.

As they say "S... Happens". Mistakes are made.

Specializes in Oncology.
@notachargenurse and others...It's great that you have great benefits and bonus' and everything is hunky-dory for you what about your brothers and sisters out there working and paying $1000 a month for insurance, or other ridiculous amounts and not making the wage either. Dam* people there are other people out there besides you. There are so many these days wanting other people to work for a pittance and without benefits just so there are no big bad unions, we can't get it done without them, (no I am not a member of one) I live in an "at will" state and they do "at will" take your job away for any reason they want, (to all the managers...don't try to tell me that "can't" happen, because it can, "at will") all they have to do is create a paper trail, try to stand up against it and your insubordinate, you can't win. Live in that environment for a while. You would appreciate some back-up.

Brenda100, you are so right about this! I have seen this happen with my own eyes to @ least 2 of my colleagues. The one was super innocent and the nicest person but the boss I had @ the time didn't like her, so she made a paper trail just like you suggested and when the time was right they outed her for something she was completely innocent about. I watched in shock and couldn't believe it was happening! The other one I observed just did't want to play their game and so she was gone.

No, we workers in the US do NOT have it better than any other time in history. Several decades ago there was less of a gap between the rich and the poor and there was not such a small number of people holding such a great percentage of the country's wealth (BA in History, graduated Summa Cum Laude). I understand what you are saying about pushing back too hard but when you don't push back, the greedy walk all over you. Sutter made $3.7 billion in profits over the last five years, their CEO Pat Fry was paid $4 million in 2009, and

most Sutter top executives have had raises of over 100 percent over the past few years. Sutter is trying to limit the nurses' ability to advocate for patients, ending paid sick days (forcing them to work while sick), and slashing their health care coverage and retiree health benefits. What is wrong with this picture? I'm not saying Sutter can't make money but this is pure greed!

Thank you for being a voice of reason! I have read hundreds of nurses' posts on various websites and have been struck by the realization that thousands of nurses across this country go to work every day fearing the loss of their jobs, license, reputation, and worse because they are working in grossly understaffed facilities where they cannot possibly safely care for each patient for whom they are responsible. Naysayers must keep in mind that the the law does not protect their licenses nor provide immunity from criminal charges if they make an error and use understaffing as an excuse AFTER the fact. They are obligated to refuse an unsafe assignment as soon as they get report. The MYTH of the "nursing shortage" has been promulgated by profit centers like the one you describe as an excuse to purposely understaff to exponentially increase their obscene salaries. When are nurses going to understand that if they stand TOGETHER to uphold safe practices they can change the current tragic condition of nursing practice? No other profession requiring the intelligence, education, and skill of nursing has remained enslaved by the whims of CEOs who use intimidation and threats, such as abandonment charges, to keep us "in line." Has being a female-dominated profession kept the majority fearful of standing up for their rights? Where has that gotten us? Our working conditions, and subsequent patient safety, have only deteriorated to the point of being unbearable.

I am also one of the nurses on strike who was locked out for 5 days. I blame the lockout- not the strike for this patient's death. The hospital wanted to punish us for striking for one day. Instead of putting patients first, they locked us out for 5 to punitively strike at our paychecks.

I still believe that the strike was necessary. I still believe that the reasons for striking were valid. I am terribly sorry for the person who lost their life and for their family, but I know that it was NOT my fault. It was not YOUR fault either. We all know as nurses that medication error is possible. We all triple and quadruple check ourselves, our meds, and our orders before giving any med. This nurse made a terrible mistake. A terrible mistake. She and the hospital are responsible for this death. Not the striking nurses.

They didn't lock you out for 5 days to punish you. The travel-nurse organization would not agree to send nurses there for just 1 day- the hospital had to commit to at least 5 days for the travel agency to get their moneys worth for travel expenses.

They didn't lock you out for 5 days to punish you. The travel-nurse organization would not agree to send nurses there for just 1 day- the hospital had to commit to at least 5 days for the travel agency to get their moneys worth for travel expenses.

It still amounts to punishment....the hospital put themselves in this position, but the nurses paid for it in loss of income.

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