NEW BRUNSWICK-The Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital nurses union yesterday overwhelmingly rejected the hospital's latest labor contract offer, opening the door for a strike to begin at 7 a.m. on Aug. 24, according to union officials.
"The membership is sending a clear message to the hospital that health-care coverage is just substandard, and they won't accept it," said Jeanne Clark, a spokeswoman for the nurses union and a nurse at the hospital for 16 years. "We've got more work to do."
The nurses rejected the revised contract by a vote of 616 to 252, with one member abstaining.
The nurses rejected the hospital's original offer by a 765-165 vote on July 27.
may i submit respectfully, that i don't find it necessary to belittle their triumphs.
perhaps they didn't get everything.
but they acquired enough where the tradeoff enabled them to return to work, with some concrete goals attained.
they remained united, persevered and prioritized/reprioritized.
should they ever strike again, this strike will have served as the foundation in which to build.
i as a nurse, am shocked when another fellow nurse comes along and is so openly unsupportive.
yes, it is your right to free speech.
yes, it is a public forum.
yet inspite of our 'rights', let's show ea other a little more encouragement in our personal and professional endeavors.
it's not always about who is right, but rather, what is right.
leslie
It's not about belittling them. I respect the courage to strike. But IF you are going to strike, you have to be in it for the long haul.
It's an honest assessment. Look at some of the posts later in this thread after the new (old) offer was made. It was the same offer.
I understand the need to want to pat them on the back for the courage it took to strike. But not only did they not get what they want (which I argued was unreasonable), they also didn't get a fair compromise (which I argued was untenable). Basically, they got nothing for the strike. There was a middle ground between the two extremes and I consistently advocated in this thread seeking that middle ground.
In fact, it was left at the bargaining table because a reasonable opening position was not made and holding out for any kind of real counter was not waited out. I'm not making a statement about the nurses, but their union.
Their union failed them.
Declaring victory is sweet, but there has to be a real ring to it. This victory was hollow. That's an honest assessment. If you can't be honest about where you stand, you also can't 'build for the future'.
I'm NOT being unsupportive. I'm pointing out reality so that IN THE FUTURE, a more reasonable assessment can be made about negotiating, and maybe, about their negotiating team. THAT is supportive.
It would be a travesty to let this union represent to its members that it gained them a victory. The truth here is brutal, not I.
may i submit respectfully, that i don't find it necessary to belittle their triumphs.
perhaps they didn't get everything.
but they acquired enough where the tradeoff enabled them to return to work, with some concrete goals attained.
they remained united, persevered and prioritized/reprioritized.
should they ever strike again, this strike will have served as the foundation in which to build.
i as a nurse, am shocked when another fellow nurse comes along and is so openly unsupportive.
yes, it is your right to free speech.
yes, it is a public forum.
yet inspite of our 'rights', let's show ea other a little more encouragement in our personal and professional endeavors.
it's not always about who is right, but rather, what is right.
leslie
Well said Leslie, and yes Timothy, you have been unsupportive in the eyes of many nurses. Maybe you consider yourself the devil's advocate, but I, as a nurse and not a Robert Wood Johnson nurse, was offended with many of your posts.
Well said Leslie, and yes Timothy, you have been unsupportive in the eyes of many nurses. Maybe you consider yourself the devil's advocate, but I, as a nurse and not a Robert Wood Johnson nurse, was offended with many of your posts.
I said nothing offensive. If you aren't willing to challenge your preconceptions about how things work and why things are, then you won't grow.
If nurses REALLY want to exercise power and not just talk about it, then nurses need to exercise the power they have wisely.
I'm a strong advocate of having real power, be it by unions or any other means.
Simple point of fact, the contract ultimately signed was identical to the contract offered BEFORE the strike. There is NO other rationale intepretation but that the union failed the RWJ nurses.
They can whitewash that and we can all join in with a chorus of well done. Or, we all can learn from it.
I don't consider myself a 'devil's advocate'. I am actually advocating the POV that the power in negotiating is well, actually negotiating. I have been unsupportive of actions that didn't advance the needs of the nurses at RWJ. In the end, my viewpoint was vindicated by the fact that their needs for striking WEREN'T met.
If you confuse a castigation of the inept union representation during this strike at RWJ to be unsupportive of the nurses that were failed by that union, then, however untrue, I can live with that.
But the things I said were only offensive if you blindly support unions for the sake of unions, and not their members.
I consistently advocated two positions in this thread: 1. The original position of the union was unreasonable, and 2. Failing to get real concessions would be a disaster for the nurses at RWJ. There was a middle ground between the two extremes offered, but the nurses at RWJ simply didn't have the effective representation to either advance or vote on the middle ground that would have led to real improvements of their concerns.
I see Timothy's point here and I don't necessarily think he should be criticized for it because he's right a lot of the time. People should honestly evaluate union performance.
I live in California where we have CNA, which is a pretty good union. But that doesn't mean that CNA is perfect by any means. They do sometimes fail with their contracts.
I've seen CNA lose ground in some of their contracts. But sometimes, they also make up for it with subsequent contracts that far exceed anything that's available in the marketplace. Sometimes you have to look at the performance over 2-3 contracts, not just one.
It really depends on the individual facility. Some facilities have better union negotiators than others. And some facilities have more union support than others. If the union only has a bare majority then the negotiators are going to be in a weaker position and probably not do as well as negotiators who have the support of 90 percent of the RN's in the facility.
I do know RN's who are unhappy with CNA at certain facilities because they didn't get good contracts the first time around, and I don't blame them. Just because I'm pro-union, I'm not going to tell them to blindly support CNA if the union isn't delivering.
On the other hand, CNA has done great things in my particular area ... wages are up 30 percent in just three years because of them, and that's going to increase to 40 percent next year. In my case, CNA is definitely worth supporting but I probably wouldn't support them as much at other facilities where they haven't done as well.
Because the results can be so varied ... I do think people should evaluate union performance in an individual basis. If the union isn't delivering, Timothy is right ... we need to be honest about it.
Union accountability isn't a bad thing. If the union isn't delivering ... they need to be put on notice so, hopefully, they do better next time.
Folks, I hate like heck to mention this because the nurses at RWJU have a reason to strike HOWEVER....nurses in my home state (Michigan) in Petoskey have been on strike over staffing ratios and demand for better patient care for FOUR YEARS !!!! (It may be more....). The hospital bused in nurses from all over to cross the picket line and paid they HUGE salaries to do so. The town became divided over it, people fought, and all the while the corporation felt they wanted to spend their dollars fighting nurses who unionized. How STUPID !!! They spent (and ARE spending) more money to break the union just so "they" could be the winner. The patients lost because the issue is still unresolved, more nurses are out of work, heck - they weren't even debating salaries....it was patient care! Just my opinion, but "nurses" who cross picket lines and work - well, let's just leave it at that, no sense getting booted out of AllNurses .... :angryfire :angryfire :angryfire :nono:
I'm sorry pyrolady; the Michigan situation does seem to have fallen by the wayside. Agree with your feelings on strike-breaking nurses.
:nono:
leslie :-D
11,191 Posts
timothy,
may i submit respectfully, that i don't find it necessary to belittle their triumphs.
perhaps they didn't get everything.
but they acquired enough where the tradeoff enabled them to return to work, with some concrete goals attained.
they remained united, persevered and prioritized/reprioritized.
should they ever strike again, this strike will have served as the foundation in which to build.
i as a nurse, am shocked when another fellow nurse comes along and is so openly unsupportive.
yes, it is your right to free speech.
yes, it is a public forum.
yet inspite of our 'rights', let's show ea other a little more encouragement in our personal and professional endeavors.
it's not always about who is right, but rather, what is right.
leslie