California Nurses Association may be targeting University of Chicago after Cook County win
If there's a campaign map on the wall at the Oakland, Calif., headquarters of the California Nurses Association, the Chicago area must be ground zero.
Since winning away Cook County's 1,800 nurses from the Illinois Nurses Association, the independent union has linked with nurses at more than 20 Chicago-area hospitals with the goal of organizing a handful of them, union officials say.
One possible target is the University of Chicago Hospitals, where workers from the national organizing arm of the California Nurses have been talking with nurses.
They say they are only helping the 1,300 University of Chicago nurses, who belong to the Illinois Nurses Association. But they do not rule out an eventual organizing drive like the one they successfully staged at Cook County.
The situation is "reminiscent" of what happened with Cook County's nurses, confirmed Fernando Losada, head of Midwest operations for the National Nurses Organizing Committee, the national arm for the California Nurses Association.
You are right that improvrd patient care is due to the people who take care of the patients. That's why we have nurses from all dept. on the negotiating team, and the members decide what they want in their contract . They decide on the priorities.
You are right that improvrd patient care is due to the people who take care of the patients. That's why we have nurses from all dept. on the negotiating team, and the members decide what they want in their contract . They decide on the priorities.
You are right that improvrd patient care is due to the people who take care of the patients. That's why we have nurses from all dept. on the negotiating team, and the members decide what they want in their contract . They decide on the priorities.
One man's raid is another man's rescure. CNA has greatly improved conditions in CA. By the way, you can't just steal union members. The membership has to vote the old union out and the new one in.
As RNs it is absolutely our obligation to advocate for our patients --and when we are untied with our ancillary staff in the same union at the same hospital we have a stronger voice with administration--for patients!
We can make sure we have enough aids--they are not getting cut due to census, supplies, enough staff to deliver meals--ontimel housekeepers to ensure patients have clean rooms and hallways --a stronger position and ability to deliver quality paitent care
Would you be advocating for your patients if you walked out on strike, leaving the patients without adequate nursing. Especially since most all strikes are simply about pay.
Would you be advocating for your patients if you walked out on strike, leaving the patients without adequate nursing. Especially since most all strikes are simply about pay.
Nurses strike for better pay all the time ... whether they are union or non-union. They just don't always do it in an organized fashion. At last count there were 350,000 RN's nationwide who weren't working and, at least some of them probably quit because of lousy pay and lousy working conditions.
Many of them also quit jobs for better pay ... You see threads on that topic all the time. Since RN wages have barely kept up with inflation in the last 20 years, I don't see anything wrong with people wanting to make a better living.
And I gotta tell ya ... the unions in California did get the ratio law passed ... and that has drastically improved patient care. Ask any travelling nurse who's worked other states where there are no ratio laws ... and they'll tell you the same thing.
Would you be advocating for your patients if you walked out on strike, leaving the patients without adequate nursing. Especially since most all strikes are simply about pay.
Strikes are NOT always about pay. Often they are about patient care issues and working conditions that are creating unsafe patient care.
No union security means a weak union which means they have little ability to negotiate for issues that directly affect patient care (like restrictions on floating nurses to different specialties, adequate staffing, etc). That's how union security emcompasses patient care and working conditions.
Not necessarily is lack of "union security" associated with a weak union.
I work in a "Right to work" state where union security is unconstitutional, but I also work in a facility represented by the largest healthcare union in the nation: SEIU. Believe me, my contract and my union is anything but weak: we set the standards. Our floating language is quoted as one of the best, as is our pay. And we cannot strike because I work in a public facility!!!
Joan1199
33 Posts
You are right that improvrd patient care is due to the people who take care of the patients. That's why we have nurses from all dept. on the negotiating team, and the members decide what they want in their contract . They decide on the priorities.