Leyla~

So much for negotiations. MNA is filing a 10 day strike notice this morning.

84% of those who voted, voted for a strike. That's less than 55% of membership who actually did vote for the strike. They're going to attempt negotiations again on Thursday. Although with the NNU refusing to budge in any way, shape or form on their staffing policy chances are good a strike will be called within a couple of days.

Any chance this actually happened at a Minnesota hospital? I'm growing quite tired of anecdotal stories like these, especially when they haven't occurred in the hospitals negotiating right now. Also, he wouldn't have been left wet for so long if there'd been extra CNAs on the floor.

I seriously have to wonder how many posters here actually work in one of the affected MN hospitals. Do you guys have any clue what the staffing situation is here? We have excellent ratios at my hospital and excellent outcomes. Our contract already has language in place to address our staffing matrixes through processes involving floor nurses as well as management. Twin Cities Hospitals Rigorous Staffing Practices Already in Place We have 1:1-2 in ICU, 1:4 on med/surgical floors, 1:3 couplets in postpartum, and TONS of staff to provide patient as well as staff safety on our mental health floor. I assume the other floors in our hospital are just as adequately staffed. We don't need the ratios for patient safety. Mandating the ratios is merely a goal of the NNU, using MN nurses as pawns in their national agenda. The ratios go beyond coverage for patients in the hospital, mandating that hospitals staff to 100 or 115% (depending on the proposal) and forcing hospitals to close units and reschedule surgeries if the floors get to 90%. Does it make sense to staff to 100% while closing at 90%??? Our hospitals are also asking us to mimic floating the way Abbott (a magnet hospital) nurses do. We have a floor that has been averaging 50% capacity, why would they staff it to 100%? Those nurses frequently complete their mandates because staffing doesn't have any options of floating them to floors where they may have sick calls or people willing to take low need. MNA wants "safe staffing" but the nurses aren't willing to float to accommodate. Why? I am just completely boggled by all this "safe staffing" rhetoric when I don't see it as an applicable cause to get wound up over. The unions are using fear-based tactics, claiming we'll somehow lose our current ratios and have more patients. They extrapolate on hospital language so they can continue these tactics, rather than asking for language clarification from the hospitals. This isn't even remotely about "safe staffing" for MN hospitals. It's about pushing a national agenda, gaining more membership to the NNU. It's about increasing profits for MNA (by forcing hospitals to hire more nurses at higher wages) and increased profits for the NNU. If anything we'll have WORSE patient care if these mandated ratios at 100% are implemented. I've heard it will cost hospitals over $80 million just in wages (not benefits) for the extra staff. Where do you think that will come from? Not from the so-called profits. Will it really be better for our patients if we have the same care ratios when we come to work, but no longer have nursing assistants? How about if we have to help clean patient rooms because housekeeping has been cut. Maybe we'll keep our ancillary staff, but have to cope with out of date equipment. Is that better for our patients? Yes, safe staffing is important. I can't imagine nurses taking on 6-7 patients on a medical/surgical floor. But that is not the situation we are dealing with in Minnesota right now.

So what part of chanting with bull horns and driving up and down the street in front of hospital zones honking, as well as encouraging/forcing other vehicles to honk by stepping into the streets was designed to minimize the impact on the patients? We had very sick people trying to rest and heal being disturbed by this useless noise. There were MNA members who "care about patients" blocking hospital entrances so patients couldn't easily access the services they needed or visit their sick family members. How is this "minimizing the impact?" Am I supposed to be somehow convinced of MNA compassion because patients had much needed surgeries rescheduled rather than being abandoned on the floor? My friend's aunt had to have her knee replacement rescheduled for a month out. Though another strike may postpone that for her once again. I'm sure she's very grateful to MNA for their consideration so that she may spend at least another 2 months in pain. I'm so glad MNA worked so hard to "minimize the impact." NNU wanted a strike to gain national attention and push their agenda. Patients were the last concern.

Then why now and not over the past 3 years of the current contract? They aren't trying to "inform" the public. They've realized that the public is wholly against them, believes that the strikes are over financial gains, and only now brings these to light in an effort to win back lost public support. If horrible patient care existed, and was ignored by hospital administration, MNA and its members should have the responsibility to inform the public at that time of the problems going on so that they could be informed, and demand better service for the hospitals. Airing "horror stories" now accomplishes nothing. Maybe you should read posts more clearly and ask questions if you don't understand. I'd never suggest limiting float nurses to a singular role. If you'll read more clearly it was the FLYERs, not the floats with a change of roles. If anything, changing the flyer to ADT clarifies their role more, gives them clearer direction and responsibility, as well as easing some of the most time consuming tasks of the floor nurses. I do know what goes on in my hospital. Which is why I further find the fervor over staffing ratios ridiculous. Our hospital already has EXCELLENT staffing ratios. Mandating the 4:1, scheduling to 115% of capacity while only allowing the hospitals to fill to 90% is unnecessary. In our hospital the greatest concerns seem to come from vague contract language by the hospitals regarding floating to more than one floor. Unfortunately, rather than requesting clarification on the language, MNA would rather leave the language alone so it can make wild extrapolations regarding what the hospitals might really mean. Fear seems to be the most used tool in MNAs box. Furthermore, after learning just how much of our contract negotiations are being led by NNU I further understand that NNU and MNA aren't interested in Minnesota nurses' needs, they're simply interested in furthering their own national agenda. It doesn't matter that healthcare in MN is excellent. It doesn't matter that we have great patient outcomes. What matters is accomplishing their staffing ratios in MN so that they can win other states to NNU and force hospitals with lousy ratios and outcomes to NNUs ways. The one-day strike was DISGUSTING. The hatred for the replacement workers who provided care when MNA walked out is awful. Partying on the picket line, to the point where news sources describe the atmosphere as "festive," makes me sick. A security guard where I work even reported a group of nurses who were intoxicated on the picket line during the overnight shift. There were more patient complaints at my hospital regarding the noise from the picket line. We don't have foot traffic at my hospital. Using bull-horns and chanting accomplishes NOTHING but disruption to the sick patients that they supposedly "care" about. I have yet to see a single word of sympathy expressed by MNA towards the numerous lives disturbed by the nurses walking out. They are so focused on their own goals they don't realize the added stress to women who gave birth that day with nurses who don't have established relationships with the doctors. They don't realize that it's more than a simple inconvenience for patients to have to reschedule their surgeries. Sure "elective" sounds like "unnecessary," but I doubt those waiting for joint replacements, hysterectomies and other "elective" surgeries feel they are unnecessary. Because nurses walked out, our community members were forced to continue to live with pain. Many of those patient had to find friends and family members to help take care of them for the surgery, or to assist with child care. They'll have that inconvenience once again. Some of those patients had to take PTO for their surgery; many employers won't allow staff to rescind PTO once approved. Will they have more PTO for the next time their surgery is scheduled? MNA members are so damned focused on their own goals they're oblivious to the consequences for our patients. And what did the one-day strike accomplish other than disruption to patient care? As far as I can tell nothing.

I apologize if this has already been mentioned, I only checked the last few pages. I was checking the National Right To Work website just now, looking for those sample union resignation letters (I'm resending them certified mail this time so I won't have any legal issues when I cross the picket lines in MN) and came across the following: Houston, TX (June 03, 2010) - The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has issued a formal complaint against the California Nurses Association (CNA) union and Tenet Healthcare Corporation (THC) for illegally negotiating contractual provisions before the union received majority support from Tenet employees. The complaint was prompted by unfair labor practice charges filed by several nurses at the Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center with the help of National Right to Work Foundation attorneys. Full article here: Federal Labor Board to Prosecute Hospital Union for Illegal Bargaining in Secret Agreement | National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation

Nothing like having the MNA further trash our reputations for the public. Now we're airing "horror stories" of short staffing to sway the public towards our cause. That's not going to back-fire at all I've been following the comments on the Star Tribune's online articles. The stories are being viewed as nurse incompetence, situations that would have been improved by increasing nursing assistants, totally fabricated lies, and mostly the public is stating that if these horrors were really occurring the nurses should have brought it to the public's attention well before contract negotiations began. The other thing it's doing is creating more fear for our patients, just the sort of compassionate move nurses should be making. As it is, most of the stories WOULD really show the need for increasing nursing assistants; pt falls due to lack of checks, unable to get patient up off the floor because there aren't enough staff, dying patient sitting in own feces because there wasn't anyone to help the nurse clean him up. Time spent ignoring patients to do admissions seems to be a frequent issue. Why would you ignore your other patients entirely while doing an admission that doesn't need to be completed for 24 hours? Where's the insight regarding what's important? Our hospital has recently changed the flyer RN position to an ADT (Admission Discharge Transfer) nurse position to alleviate some of the stresses caused by those situations. I like this sort of creative problem solving. We don't need more nurses on every floor just to manage admissions and discharges. Of course MNA won't be advocating to increase the number of nursing assistants (though I would personally love more CNAs than RNs on the floors that I've worked) because CNAs don't further line the union bosses pockets.

This is the sort of garbage we keep hearing from people who listen to gossip rather than searching out the truth. For starters, the hospitals NEVER wanted to float nurses from hospital to hospital. It was NEVER in their contract proposals. The idea that they would attempt to do this is so ludicrous I can't believe anyone ever gave this rumor credit. Can you imagine the headache associated with cross-training staff to different hospitals? The scheduling challenges, when scheduling already struggles? And with each hospital under a different contract, even within the same system, how would they handle the challenges regarding what contract applies to the employee working for one hospital under one contract floating to another hospital with a different contract. To further justify how far blown this rumor has gotten, look at your ridiculous scenario. "A nurse from Regions, floating to Mercy hospital." Um. Sure. Exactly how are they going to float a non-union nurse from Regions to a hospital in an entirely different system, owned and managed by an entirely different entity? Utter non-sense. What I want to know is, if nurses so strongly desire appropriate ratios, why are they so unwilling to float to another unit within their skill set? Float pool nurses may be more of a jack-of-all-trades than nurses working the same unit, but we don't see the unions demanding the elimination of float pool for patient safety. It's not as though the hospitals are dumb enough to remove everyones floor assignments and make them all float pool with no staff consistency on a unit. I personally don't feel qualified to work a neuro or cardiac specialty floor, but I certainly wouldn't have any trouble with 4 or 5 units within my hospital given my background. I'm happier working my own floor with the staff I'm familiar with, but if it means greater patient safety I'm willing to float to meet patient needs. I just can't wait until the dust settles and this is all over with. A one-day strike is a joke. It's a toddler throwing a temper tantrum, accomplishing nothing. Public perception of our profession is tanking because everyone can see that the union isn't backing down on their ridiculous financial gain requests. Very few, outside of the brainwashed union mob, believe that this is really about patient safety and not about nurse profits.

They've just announced the "one-day" strike will be held June 10th.

Feedback we're getting from our hospitals is that relief workers are hired on a weekly basis. With the 10 day advance notification the hospitals intend to essentially (from the sounds of it) make the same adjustments they would have made if it were a permanent strike (i.e. adjusting patient ratios, rescheduling elective surgeries, etc). They are saying that if the union strikes for one day, it could take up to a week to bring the striking nurses back in. From what I've read about the situation the one day strike is intended to cause significant financial impact (full week pay for relief workers) and headaches for the hospitals, while hopefully not impacting staff nurses wages as much as a month or more of striking would. I have no idea if this type of strike is effective.

Wow, nothing like bizarre baseless insults huh? Exactly what do you hope to accomplish with such comments? I don't think it's irrational "fretting" when there have been so many layoffs last year. And the union has proven they care more about seniority than anything. If you're low senior you're pretty much hosed if the company hires other workers permanently during the strike causing less open positions. Hospitals in MN are not hiring right now. When Maple Grove Hospital opened they had over 7,000 applications for 200 nursing jobs. Clearly there are nurses out there looking for jobs. I had eleven months seniority, lost my position and was "bumped" into other departments last year. They have not been doing any more hiring which means that I'm still pretty near the bottom of the food chain now with almost 2 years in at the hospital. AKA I'm at risk too. But clearly Chico knows all about the Minnesota environment for us newer nurses, what with him living in California and having over 20 years experience... best listen to his advice

Just found out more about the striking stuff today. The safety of your job hinges on what type of strike is called. If it's an economic strike the employer can permanently replace workers, once the strike is over there's no telling how remaining nurses will be allowed to come back. If it works like most past layoff situations lowest senior staff will be bumped on out. If that's the case chances are good it won't matter if you strike or not, if too many of the current positions are permanently replaced you may be bumped out. The union is angling to call an Unfair Labor Practices strike, claiming that the hospitals colluded in contract negotiations. More in the Star Tribune article here: Twin Cities nurses' union eyes 1-day walkout | StarTribune.com If they manage a ULP strike then job positions will be safe. I don't foresee MNA being successful in calling an ULP strike though. Your best bet would be to talk with your employer to discuss the best way to safeguard your position. Assuming of course that they can do anything about it since their hands are often tied by MNA contracts.

I suggest looking for companies that do private-duty nursing rather than case management. With private-duty work you spend your 8-12 hour shift in the patients home taking care of one individual. You'll get more hands-on time with your patients and I've found the atmosphere to be rather enjoyable. I started out after getting my ADN with Edelweiss Home Health Care. They used to specialize in pediatrics, though they have a few adults now I believe. You'll gain a lot of skills with this type of environment as many of the pediatric patients are technology dependent (trachs, vents, G-J tubes, feeding pumps), working nights are typically quiet so you have time to read books, etc while monitoring the patient. If you work during the day you interact with the families more as well as with OT and PT and learn skills to help in the patients development. Also, they typically only assign you to 1-3 patients at a time so you really get to know your cases. The pay is fair. Upfront it may seem a little challenging, the scheduling system is a little weird sometimes, they will pay for the classes you need to take to learn about the vents, etc, but they won't pay you for your time in the class. Once you get through orientation though it's a pretty nice gig. I believe Bayada also offers a similar type of work, but I am not as familiar with them. If you have any other questions please feel free to ask. Good luck!

It really depends on the instructor as to the level that Christianity is incorporated. Many of the instructors do start the class periods out with a short devotion and a prayer. I know at least one of our shorter text books was written by a Catholic priest and focused on Jesus Christ in relation to caring/serving others. A few of the in class assignments did involve Bible verses. In the public health course some of the students were assigned to follow parish nurses. As a Christian, used to the secular formats of K-12 and other colleges, I felt less like an outsider with the inclusion of Christianity into the course work. Had the focus been preachy, or overbearing, that would have bothered me. Instead, it felt like just a part of the natural flow of things. There were muslims in my classes, as well as Catholics, and those who didn't believe in God or any other sort of higher power. All viewpoints were treated with respect. I guess it all depends on how tolerant you are. If you want to avoid all mention of God, it's probably not the way to go. If having other people pray, and occasional discussions about Christ don't bother you, then it's probably not going to be very big deal.