Nursing Unions-what is the good,bad, ugly?

Nurses General Nursing

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anyone in a nursing union w/in your facility? what is the good, bad, ugly?

How big are the hospitals that you all work for that have unions?

I can see the advantage, especially if you have a large hospital. My dh is a teacher, in a union, and if the union weren't there, he wouldn't have had a raise for the last 10 years, and he also would have been required to work extra time (monitor games, etc) at no extra pay (all of these were proposals that the school board made that the unionshot down).

Our hospital does not have a union, and it honestly doesn't appear to need one. We are well paid for our area, and even better, our staffing numbers are fantastic. It wasn't always like this, though, and four years ago there was a huge staffing upheaval; I left as well, I just couldn't take working on a busy medical floor and having teams of 10-15 at night. Our administrators weren't listening. So we all just went elsewhere. Our town is a small town situated between two very large towns; all those hospitals are always hiring. I went to a doctors office/midwifery clinic. There was talk of unionizing.

Now I'm back, and administration apparently saw the light (or the fear of unionizing got them going). As an LPN, if I have more that 4 patients on a night shift, it's an extremely busy shift. In 6 months, that's only happened once. If I float, I only float to places where Ihave been oriented, or where I say I feel comfortable (for instance, though I haven't been officially oriented in the nursery, I have my NRP and worked as a labor/delivery/postpartum/nursery nurse at the midwifery clinic, so I volunteered to put my name on the float list for mother/baby).

Now, the disadvantages are that there are nurses who could take advantage of this situation; but they don't. I think the hospital is small enough, they just CAN'T get away with it; the other nurses won't let them.

We are somewhere around a 200 bed hospital when at full capacity. But we are going through some renovations right now, so our capacity is less. We usually run around 100 inpatients; our floor has capacity for 42, and we usually fluctuate from the high 20s to high 30s.

Do you all think that, based on your experience, size of hospital makes a difference in the need for a union?

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So even if they lie, cheat and steal ... at least they help me. The corporation lies, cheats, steals ... and rips me off.:typing

They sure do!!

Every day they are thinking of more ways to take in more patients and pay fewer nurses to care for them with less money.

A good percentage of these thread subjects are nurses who somehow got scammed into taking bigger patient assignments with even less support staff help than what they started with. And that's just the tip of the iceberg in how they take full advantage of our skills, abilities, and education.

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Sorry about the error, but why should I have to "pay dues" to an organization of which I am not a member, and which would not represent me. Forced payment of anything is kinda like extortion. Labor unions are just like corporations, they will lie, cheat, and steal to get what they want.

You are incorrect when you say they do not represent you. Don't you enjoy the same benefits that those who belong to the union do? Don't you receive the same pay they do? Don't you receive the same amount of vacation time they do? Don't you receive the same amount of sick time they do? And most important, if you NM suddenly decided to suspend you and you felt it was unfair or unwarrented, would you have the same protections as those horrible union nurses? The answer to my questions is all yes. You enjoy the same benfits and protections that the union members do. And that have been negotiated, by the union, for all the workers in the facility. You have chosen not to be a member but I seriously doubt that you would just as eagerly turn back, to your employer, all the benefits a union has negotiated. No sane and reasonable person would, that I know.

Grannynurse:balloons:

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Our hospital was recently taken over by a large medical center. The larger center is not represented by a union. Our hospital is represented by New York State Nurses Assoc. Large center is trying to force us to become a mother-baby center but the nurses don't want it. What can we do about it?

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You are incorrect when you say they do not represent you. Don't you enjoy the same benefits that those who belong to the union do? Don't you receive the same pay they do? Don't you receive the same amount of vacation time they do? Don't you receive the same amount of sick time they do? And most important, if you NM suddenly decided to suspend you and you felt it was unfair or unwarrented, would you have the same protections as those horrible union nurses? The answer to my questions is all yes. You enjoy the same benfits and protections that the union members do. And that have been negotiated, by the union, for all the workers in the facility. You have chosen not to be a member but I seriously doubt that you would just as eagerly turn back, to your employer, all the benefits a union has negotiated. No sane and reasonable person would, that I know.

Grannynurse:balloons:

You might receive the same pay and benefits, but the union would NOT represent you in a labor dispute. And there are unions that are pushing for termination of non-union employees. As far as the pros vs. cons, can anyone give concrete proof of pay differentials in the same geographic area for a union hospital vs. a non-union hospital? I don't know that answer either, but it seems that pay is central in this arguement, and I would be interested in knowing.

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You can't really compare union vrs non-union hospitals in the same area...at least in pay. The non-union facilities have had to raise wages to union levels in order to attract nurses. Unions are more than just pay issues. Just look at some of the threads about nurses that have been fired without "due cause". Unions provide a voice that management has to listen to.

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Specializes in Critical Care.
It is pick your poison. Performance, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. The only fair system is one that treats everyone the same.

In my case, union dues of $30/month have equaled $35k in raises in 5 years!

My income has gone up by the same amount without the union garbage. That's a line being fed to you. Salaries are going up all over the nation because there is a shortage of qualified, working nurses.

Your union can claim credit for it and you can believe that if you like.

But that doesn't explain the same general increase in salaries for us non-union types.

And you can claim it's because of the union contracts that non-union salaries also rise, but - there isn't a nursing union anywhere around me, and my salary is still rising. It's called supply and demand. Your union can call it what they want, but that doesn't make it so.

The problem with unions is they become entrenched, and when they do, what THEY want takes priority over what the nurses want. Now, nurses have two layers of control and interference.

No, thank you.

~faith,

Timothy.

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My income has gone up by the same amount without the union garbage. That's a line being fed to you. Salaries are going up all over the nation because there is a shortage of qualified, working nurses.

Your union can claim credit for it and you can believe that if you like.

It's not just believing. Where is the data to back up your claims? Are you saying the Bureau of Labor Statistics is wrong?

Let's review:

The BoLS says union RN's nationwide make $7,000 more a year than non-union RN's.

The BoLS says union workers in general make $9,000 more than non-union workers.

California RN's make $15,000 more on average than Texas RN's who are entirely non-union.

So if the difference isn't with California being a union state, and Texas being a right to work state ... why isn't the shortage helping Texas RN's make money more comparable to California wages?

:coollook:

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Our hospital was recently taken over by a large medical center. The larger center is not represented by a union. Our hospital is represented by New York State Nurses Assoc. Large center is trying to force us to become a mother-baby center but the nurses don't want it. What can we do about it?

What does the NYSNA say? What are they advising you to do. As your representatives, which does not change because you were bought out, taken to them? I am wondering where you are located. Something like this happened between Albany and Schenectady, only they wanted to expand the services of a mother/baby center.

Grannynurse

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Registered Nurse Unions and Patient Outcomes

...Thirty-five percent of hospitals in California have RN unions. The significant finding in this study is that hospitals in California with RN unions have lower mortality rates for AMI after accounting for patient age, gender, type of MI, chronic diseases, and several organizational characteristics....

OK the links don't work. I think because I have a password. This summarized it:

http://www.massnurses.org/News/2002/002004/study.htm

http://www.jonajournal.com/pt/re/jona/fulltext.00005110-200203000-00007.htm;jsessionid=ECC6B32sld0PbvTG0GsTJxuiH3MjkS00JOaA2q2jPnzryHksd8EJ!276062241!-949856144!9001!-1

http://www.jonajournal.com/pt/re/jona/abstract.00005110-200203000-00007.htm;jsessionid=ECC6B32sld0PbvTG0GsTJxuiH3MjkS00JOaA2q2jPnzryHksd8EJ!276062241!-949856144!9001!-1

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The significant finding in this study is that hospitals in California with RN unions have lower mortality rates
Excellent point! Unions are not just about pay. They are about the issues that affect nursing. They are about issues that nurses care about. Union shops have better ratios and schedules, eliminating mandatory overtime, creating a safer environment for patients & nurses. Our strikes are not just about pay issues, they are about working conditions that affect patient outcomes. I worked in TX before CA so I have seen it from both sides. I too was anti-union until I saw the bigger picture of what good unions are about.
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Specializes in Acute Care Psych, DNP Student.

Just an observation from a student here. I have eight uncles on one side of my extended family. Five of them are late 50's early 60's retired truck drivers in California. They are quite anti-union. For years they have been griping about unions ruining the country blah blah blah while they sit in their $500k homes drawing on their pensions while swimming in their backyard pools and driving their new SUVs.

The other 3 brothers are truck drivers also. They live in Arizona, a right to work state. Same age range, just they don't have decent retirement plans so they haven't retired. These brothers are conservative also, but wish Arizona wasn't a right to work state. They live in mobile homes, have little retirement plans and drive old beater cars because they are trying to live on $15 per hour.

Same education. Same work. Quite different life results. Only difference with the men is where they live.

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