School nurses in ESP union

[tlessman]

Our district has one district supervisor, 4 RN's and the rest LPN's for a total of 9 nurses for our district. We are in our ESP unit and have never felt welcomed. We talked with the current co-presidents who urged us to "hang tight and we can make this work". We did that and the RN's did a market analysis and are being paid $5 less PER HOUR than other RN's in similar positions in the state. We are currently each in a school working our normal hectic "nurse duties" plus doing supervisions of the esp's, health assessments and phone interviews and typing up evals and third party billing. We 4, as Rn's, are now getting the wage increase and it was approved by the school board and the esp negotiation unit. It in no way affected any money from the esp's or lpn's in the union and was a separate thing. There are some esp's that are very angry and are saying "you are only a school nurse why should you get more money, it's not like you are a trauma nurse" When we did try and leave the union the first time, the esp unit would not ok the release and we did our part and tried to "make it work". Now, however, we are wanting out and do not feel supported at all. Do any of you have any ideas on where we could turn and who we would be able to join with in a different union? I know we don't have the numbers that we would need to make our own union effective. The Esp's are saying "you should be happy about the raise WE got you". Us RN's have been fighting for a fair wage for 15 years and have put the work in ourselves without any help. We would love some advice please! The Lpn's in our district want out of our esp union also. We don't know what to do!!

Try moving this over to the school nurse forum