Nancyebg

In the Dallas and Fort Worth area, the company that owns the Presbyterian, Harris Methodist, and Arlington Memorial Hospitals (Texas Health Resources) has a strong tuition reimbursement program. They also deliver on-site nursing school classes for ADN, BSN, and MSN programs through partnerships with El Centro and UTA. I believe this is overseen through their corporate education department.

The program was on Channel 5 news, and it was about the program at Texas Health Resources. Several posters here have been in that program and speak highly of it.

information on hospital closings in california. http://www.hasc.org/lott.cfm?id=77948

Everyone hasn't benefitted. How many hospital closures have there been, not to mention unit and service closures in California that these standards have attributed to? THe horror stories abound such as the closing of both rural and metropolitan facilities, the inability to transfer a child with brain trauma from a small rural hospital to a specialized pediatric faciltiy because they couldn't accept him due to staffing ratios. Forcing a one size fits all approach that doesnt take into account differences in the skill levels of nurses, the availability of ancillary and other support personeel, the equpment and technology available in a particular hospital, etc to meet an arbitrary standard isn't the best for nurses or the patients.

I'm with GaugeIV on this one. I trashed it myself as did most everyone I have spoken to. I've heard plenty from both sides of the fence in California--they aren't consistently enforced, they diminish the professional judgment and common sense of staff ("at all times" standard makes little sense) along with the possible positive aspects. There are good employers and bad employers in every state of the good ole USA. If you are in a bad situation, vote with your feet. There are plenty of opportunities in the better employers...without having to pay dues or give up your indepdence or your professional voice or your chance to be viewed on the merits of your own work. Unions are about one thing: creating as much divisiveness as possible in the workplace in an effort to gain dues paying members.

There are more than plenty RN jobs in the Metroplex; add no state tax and reasonable housing costs, and it is a great place to be. C'mon over! In addition to the web searches to get familiar with the many healthcare employers and choices, I'd encourage you to invest a few days for a visit to the area. Despite having plenty of openings, a good employer will want to see the whites of your eyes before they make a job offer and will want you to visit with HR, the hiring manger, and maybe even others in the dept in order to make sure you are a good fit for the environment....and you, too, can make a better informed decision based on what you see and observe for yourself. Sight unseen doesn't strike me as the best way to start an employment relationship for either party.

I agree it is neither black nor white; in fact, I was brought up in a union family in the 60s. As a general rule, I believe that unions served a useful purpose historically when labor laws were clearly one sided and before many of the legistlative changes we have seen over the past 20 years (FMLA, ADA etc.) have advanced in the US. However it is a new millenium and the fact that labor membership is at an all time low in the US speaks volumes. Fewer than 1 in 5/6 US workers are reprsetned by unions because they have come largely unnecessary in the US today and the scandals involving them and their scary tactics turned off the american worker. (Yes, a generalization based on whole, there are surely exceptions to this statement.) I'm sorry that your husband worked somewhere that didn't value him or the workers to pay them fairly and treat them appropriately; I'm glad that situation was rectified for him. If it were me, I would leave and find a situation where I was respected and treated appropriately. As a professional, I'm not one to give away my voice or my vote to someone else to speak for me. And you are known by the company you keep......be it strippers, lawyers or used car salesmen!:) Gotta go feed the kids lunch. Have a great day!

"The SEIU seeks to unionize just about anyone. In 1997 Local 790 organized strippers from the Lusty Lady peep show in San Francisco." (from unionfacts.com) No question: It's about the membership dues.

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I would guess that most people have naturally negative feelings when you think about being fingerprinting--we have been sensitized by TV that the whole process is connoted with being arrested, right? I don't view this as an invastion of privacy though. Asking about my sex life or my financial records an invasion of privacy. Heck, we all leave fingerprints all over the place so I guess they can't be too private (LOL)! Unfortunately we live in a time of criminals, thiefs, and psychopaths. Some are even nurses, doctors, lawyers and politicians! THe patients who entrust their lives when they are most vulnerable into the hands of the medical community deserve some sense of confidence that we are who we say we are, and that we do indeed posess the required credentials.

Unions are all about dues and membership, nothing more. In the competitive healthcare industry where there are shortages in clinicians, only ridiculously short sighted employers don't make good faith efforts to treat their nurses and other professional employees well. If you aren't valued and respected, then go someplace where you are. I have seen the result of unions--dues, fines, fees, assessments, as well as loss of freedom, individual merit, autonomy. My professionalism and integrity mean too much to me to turn my voice and my choice over to someone else. You need to look no further than the impact unions have had on the airline and auto industries .