Question about unions

Depending on where you are, there are probably laws regarding essential services in the event of a strike. Each state and province deals with these matters in their own ways. I can only speak for Alberta and Manitoba, Canada, on this.

In Alberta, the provincial government has made it illegal for nurses to strike. They mean any kind of organized labour action, including working-to-rule, overtime bans, and actual strikes and the penalties range from individual and union fines to imprisonment. It makes it difficult to develop any kind of leverage in an impasse situation like we faced here in 2003-2004. We were threatened with individual fines of up to $20K, union fines of up to $500K (I think) and jail time... for each infraction. Not nice. It took nearly two years to reach a contract (the preceeding one having expired on March 31, 2003 and the new one ratified June 9, 2004; negotiations running from November 2002) and we only just last month got the written copies. Now they're asking for an extension of one year, with a 3% raise but no other changes, which will be voted on this Wednesday, May 4.

In Manitoba, the government drafted an essential services law that basically allows the employer to designate anyone and everyone as essential. In 2002, just before I left there, we had taken a strike vote and had a mandate. The employer came out with an essential services schedule that had people working more than their FTE and had the units better staffed than they ever are in "normal' times. It's such a joke! In the end an eleventh hour agreement was reached and we ended up not striking.

I would suggest you look under your state government's legislation to see what would happen there. It's possible that your union will have some kind of essential services agreement with the employer. You could always contact them and see what they say. They're usually more than happy to help people understand what they do and why they do it. Good luck.

P.S. We don't abandon the patients in a strike situation. We simply only do nursing duties when it's our turn to work. No answering phones, filing chart copies, portering, supply stocking, or any other work "belonging" to another bargaining unit.