Strike or time to grow up!

Nurses General Nursing

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I hear so much talk about striking that it scares me to think that there are so many people who would abandon their patients so easily. Maybe in some cases where safety is an issue I could consider striking (after all other methods have failed). I feel that nurses need to stand together more politically but not by striking. There is currently too much fighting between nurses at this point (adn,BSN, MSN, CNA etc.)

When people strike I hear them talk bad about agency workers (scabs). Does this mean you would like to see no one show up??

Does this mean you would like to see your patients suffer??

If so maybe it is time for you to leave nursing....

Jared

Dear Jared, Military or civilian, you are giving perinatal/L&D nurses a bad name! It is people like you who lead other nursing staff to think that OB/postpartum/antepatum is the "easy" place to work--Ihave heard that over and over in my 18 years as an OB nurse!

Let me tell you one important thing--while you are sitting on your butt surfing the web, there are patients and their newly-created families who need teaching, support, comfort, etc. Your post leads me to believe that you are probably one of those nurses who got "assigned" to OB and see that assignment as a license to sit on your butt and do nothing. Of course, if that is the case, your teaching skills are probably pretty limited, too--they don't get any use!!!

Please--in the interest of nursing as a whole--when your military career is up, seek other employment. You do not sound like the kind of person who will ever do anything to benefit nursing or your patients.

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Dear Jared, Military or civilian, you are giving perinatal/L&D nurses a bad name! It is people like you who lead other nursing staff to think that OB/postpartum/antepatum is the "easy" place to work--Ihave heard that over and over in my 18 years as an OB nurse!

Let me tell you one important thing--while you are sitting on your butt surfing the web, there are patients and their newly-created families who need teaching, support, comfort, etc. Your post leads me to believe that you are probably one of those nurses who got "assigned" to OB and see that assignment as a license to sit on your butt and do nothing. Of course, if that is the case, your teaching skills are probably pretty limited, too--they don't get any use!!!

Please--in the interest of nursing as a whole--when your military career is up, seek other employment. You do not sound like the kind of person who will ever do anything to benefit nursing or your patients.

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Originally posted by -jt:

Hey Fergus......just wondering what you must be thinking about all the nurses who so eagerly jump the strike lines of other nurses here in the good ole USA - land of opportunity. Are you amazed that American nurses wont even stand together to fight the evils that they ALL have in common nation-wide? We must be a laughing stock to your nation of all-for-one nurses who would never cross each others strike lines. Some of us should be ashamed of ourselves, huh?

I worked in the US for a couple of years and nothing surprises me anymore. Nurses here are suprisingly united. We just voted 97% to reject the latest contract where the highest paid nurses would be paid about 22$ US, call in would no longer be based on seniority (so they can have a shift full of new grads to save money) and no designated days off for part-timers. Who in their right mind would think this is a great contract?

We haven't had a real raise in ten years and we wonder why we can't keep nurses in the province. Hmmm...I think I know why they're leaving. They can make more money and have more educational opportunities in the US. For instance, new grads here can not go into ICU, PAR, OR, L&D. OB, ER, etc. unless they have taken post graduate certificate studies. It would take about a year to complete the course for L&D.

I have NEVER heard a nurse talk about undermining our efforts because they understand that in the long run it would hurt the profession. I don't know why scab nurses don't have this foresight. The "I got mine so screw you" attitude is far too common among nurses. Nurses here are VERY aware that the shortage is hitting us harder than in a lot of places and us working overtime is just a bandaid solution. We are stretched to the limit. We desperately need to recruit and retain nurses or there will be no one left to care for patients. In order to do that we need to be competitive with the US.

ps

JT- there is no way a nurse can cross a picket line here because the whole province is one union. And other nurses from across Canada couldn't come and replace us because you have to be a union member to work here, not that I think they would anyway. Nurses have been very supportive of Alberta and Quebec nurses who were forced to strike.

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Originally posted by -jt:

Hey Fergus......just wondering what you must be thinking about all the nurses who so eagerly jump the strike lines of other nurses here in the good ole USA - land of opportunity. Are you amazed that American nurses wont even stand together to fight the evils that they ALL have in common nation-wide? We must be a laughing stock to your nation of all-for-one nurses who would never cross each others strike lines. Some of us should be ashamed of ourselves, huh?

I worked in the US for a couple of years and nothing surprises me anymore. Nurses here are suprisingly united. We just voted 97% to reject the latest contract where the highest paid nurses would be paid about 22$ US, call in would no longer be based on seniority (so they can have a shift full of new grads to save money) and no designated days off for part-timers. Who in their right mind would think this is a great contract?

We haven't had a real raise in ten years and we wonder why we can't keep nurses in the province. Hmmm...I think I know why they're leaving. They can make more money and have more educational opportunities in the US. For instance, new grads here can not go into ICU, PAR, OR, L&D. OB, ER, etc. unless they have taken post graduate certificate studies. It would take about a year to complete the course for L&D.

I have NEVER heard a nurse talk about undermining our efforts because they understand that in the long run it would hurt the profession. I don't know why scab nurses don't have this foresight. The "I got mine so screw you" attitude is far too common among nurses. Nurses here are VERY aware that the shortage is hitting us harder than in a lot of places and us working overtime is just a bandaid solution. We are stretched to the limit. We desperately need to recruit and retain nurses or there will be no one left to care for patients. In order to do that we need to be competitive with the US.

ps

JT- there is no way a nurse can cross a picket line here because the whole province is one union. And other nurses from across Canada couldn't come and replace us because you have to be a union member to work here, not that I think they would anyway. Nurses have been very supportive of Alberta and Quebec nurses who were forced to strike.

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By the way, can anyone tell me why the gov't can pay double time for a TON of OT (up to 52$ CND), rather than just pay a decent wage (like 40 CND) and have enough nurses so that we wouldn't have to work OT? This is the idiocy we face with our employer who will continue to keep nurses salaries and working conditions so bad that they will flee the province for the US until the nurses left here are unable to continue to care for all the patients.

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By the way, can anyone tell me why the gov't can pay double time for a TON of OT (up to 52$ CND), rather than just pay a decent wage (like 40 CND) and have enough nurses so that we wouldn't have to work OT? This is the idiocy we face with our employer who will continue to keep nurses salaries and working conditions so bad that they will flee the province for the US until the nurses left here are unable to continue to care for all the patients.

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"This is the idiocy we face with our employer who will continue to keep nurses salaries and working conditions so bad that they will flee the province for the US until the nurses left here are unable to continue to care for all the patients."

Maybe they figure that when those nurses get here, the joke will be on them - cause all they will find is more of the same conditions - just a different currency.

We're all in the same boat, Ferg.... I just wish the American nurses would take a long look at their northern peers in Canada & learn something about standing together to effect change. But I wont be holding my breath.

Thanks so much for your post.

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"This is the idiocy we face with our employer who will continue to keep nurses salaries and working conditions so bad that they will flee the province for the US until the nurses left here are unable to continue to care for all the patients."

Maybe they figure that when those nurses get here, the joke will be on them - cause all they will find is more of the same conditions - just a different currency.

We're all in the same boat, Ferg.... I just wish the American nurses would take a long look at their northern peers in Canada & learn something about standing together to effect change. But I wont be holding my breath.

Thanks so much for your post.

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Originally posted by -jt:

"This is the idiocy we face with our employer who will continue to keep nurses salaries and working conditions so bad that they will flee the province for the US until the nurses left here are unable to continue to care for all the patients."

Maybe they figure that when those nurses get here, the joke will be on them - cause all they will find is more of the same conditions - just a different currency.

We're all in the same boat, Ferg.... I just wish the American nurses would take a long look at their northern peers in Canada & learn something about standing together to effect change. But I wont be holding my breath.

Thanks so much for your post.

While the problems of working consitions are the same in the States ( I felt like a sweat shop worker there too), the salary, signing bonuses, retention bonuses and tuition reimbursement can not even compare. For a huge number of new grads the idea of bad conditions here for 25K a year can't compare to bad conditions in the US for 40K+. I think it was Dplear who was making 90K or something. The very highest paid nurses in my province make less than half that. I am tempted to return to the States for agency work. A different currency yes, but any way you cut it I was making a LOT more money in the States doing the same job that I am doing here. The only thing keeping me here is a love of my home...and that doesn't pay the bills...

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Originally posted by -jt:

"This is the idiocy we face with our employer who will continue to keep nurses salaries and working conditions so bad that they will flee the province for the US until the nurses left here are unable to continue to care for all the patients."

Maybe they figure that when those nurses get here, the joke will be on them - cause all they will find is more of the same conditions - just a different currency.

We're all in the same boat, Ferg.... I just wish the American nurses would take a long look at their northern peers in Canada & learn something about standing together to effect change. But I wont be holding my breath.

Thanks so much for your post.

While the problems of working consitions are the same in the States ( I felt like a sweat shop worker there too), the salary, signing bonuses, retention bonuses and tuition reimbursement can not even compare. For a huge number of new grads the idea of bad conditions here for 25K a year can't compare to bad conditions in the US for 40K+. I think it was Dplear who was making 90K or something. The very highest paid nurses in my province make less than half that. I am tempted to return to the States for agency work. A different currency yes, but any way you cut it I was making a LOT more money in the States doing the same job that I am doing here. The only thing keeping me here is a love of my home...and that doesn't pay the bills...

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I also didn't realuze that Jared is in the military. He therefore has absolutely no business using his experience as a baseline for what staff nurses throughout this country are going through. It's hard to take seriously the opinion of a nurse who has absolutely no idea of what he's talking about.

But, as for the original post, know this:

1) Strikes do not happen until all other options have failed. When the hospital refuses to negotiate further, staff can accept their "final offer" or reject it and serve a strike notice. If the "offer" is unsafe and unacceptable, then nurses have an ethical obligation to strike.

2)"Fighting" about different levels in nursing-and BTW, a CNA is NOT a nurse-has nothing to do with safe staffing and fair wages and practices. They are 2 separate issues.

3) Patients are never "abandoned". First of all "abandonment" can not occur unless a nurse accepts an assignemtn and then leaves the patients unattended. Striking nurses do not accept a patient assignment and therefore can not abandon them. And secondly, the hospitals by law are given 10 days notice of the intent to strike, giving them time to a) negotiate further, b) arrange to transfer patients to other facilites, or c) inform the union of critical patients who can not be moved and who have no one to care for them so the union can make arrangements to keep some staff on for these criticals.

4) Of course I want no one to show up when a strike notice is served. It is the only way a hospital can be forced to negotiate.

5) to say that any nurse wants "to see the patients suffer' is so ludicrous that it doesn't deserve to be addrsssed.

6) any nurse that feels that he can't find something productive to do during six hours of a 12 hour shift is the one who needs to get out of nursing......

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I also didn't realuze that Jared is in the military. He therefore has absolutely no business using his experience as a baseline for what staff nurses throughout this country are going through. It's hard to take seriously the opinion of a nurse who has absolutely no idea of what he's talking about.

But, as for the original post, know this:

1) Strikes do not happen until all other options have failed. When the hospital refuses to negotiate further, staff can accept their "final offer" or reject it and serve a strike notice. If the "offer" is unsafe and unacceptable, then nurses have an ethical obligation to strike.

2)"Fighting" about different levels in nursing-and BTW, a CNA is NOT a nurse-has nothing to do with safe staffing and fair wages and practices. They are 2 separate issues.

3) Patients are never "abandoned". First of all "abandonment" can not occur unless a nurse accepts an assignemtn and then leaves the patients unattended. Striking nurses do not accept a patient assignment and therefore can not abandon them. And secondly, the hospitals by law are given 10 days notice of the intent to strike, giving them time to a) negotiate further, b) arrange to transfer patients to other facilites, or c) inform the union of critical patients who can not be moved and who have no one to care for them so the union can make arrangements to keep some staff on for these criticals.

4) Of course I want no one to show up when a strike notice is served. It is the only way a hospital can be forced to negotiate.

5) to say that any nurse wants "to see the patients suffer' is so ludicrous that it doesn't deserve to be addrsssed.

6) any nurse that feels that he can't find something productive to do during six hours of a 12 hour shift is the one who needs to get out of nursing......

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