striking nurses

[amandasdad]

my 2 yo daughter was severely "damaged" because of a nursing strike. We were 2 weeks post op from open heart surgery. She went downhill fast one day. At hospital, we crossed the line to get her cared for. We ended up in ped. icu where they did their best. But they were lost. Where is this? Where is that? I watched from the hall as amandas ekg flat lined and the team scrambled to help. She came back, but she is not the same with all the brain damage. No I cant blame it all on the strike. I know that. But in my heart, I know that "things" could have been done faster better by the staff that were outside making their demands known. That was 21 years ago. It is the first time that I have said anything about watching my daughter die and come back. My hands are shaking. My throat hurts from the lump in it. Strikes suck.

[loricatus]

Although I can understand where the OP is coming from and also sympathize with the OP, management had it within their power to have helped and made a decision not to. Management should have rolled up their sleeves and been doing floor work along with those that were staffing the strike. This is what you will see in all other professions, except in nursing.

It is probably that kind of management disinterest in both patients and staff that led to the strike in the first place.

[RN4MERCY]

Here is how nurses worked to stop child labor, improve extremely unsafe working conditions, and eventually won the vote. Without the vote women were subordinate to men. Taxed without representation.

Lavinia Dock RN & Lillian Wald RN, founder of Public health Nursing protesting child labor and unsafe conditions in New York

Lavinia Dock arrested for advocating that women be considered citizens with the right to vote

All nurses should be proud of and continue to emulate these historical, professional role models in nursing. We need to honor those nurses by being leaders and active participants in social justice and political advocacy movements.

I like to think that their living spirit is with us in the fight to expand our universal health care system to this country. Health care should be provided as a public service, an entitlement, a basic right! RNs have a duty to change circumstances that are against the interests of patients. Our current, shameful for profit/insurance-manipulated health care delivery system is a deadly failure. That's why we must take it to the streets and demand passage of HR 676; it would expand MediCare, our existing single payer system, to include everyone.

Everybody in, nobody out. :redpinkhe

[Iam46yearsold]

In a business the only say you really have is take it or leave it. Not much of a say...

I always have a say, and yes people do listen

Instead of repeating anti-union talking points you should actually read up on your history. EVERY benefit you have is a direct result of the labor movement.

That is so wrong, or are you talking the prounion rhetorical history book.

Your entire life has been subjected to a male dominated hierarchy. :) The U.S. Government is still a male dominated hierarchy. No need to start being hypocritical about it now. In fact, pretty much everything is male dominated. Is it right? No, but that is the way it is. Change it or accept it but don't let that be a lame excuse for anti-union, anti-labor, anti-worker sentiments that you may hold...

Trust me, I am not dominated by a male hierarchy. Nor is Hillary or Nancy. And Im not even at their level. But they know that Unions are just pawns to help get them elected

[Atheos]

I always have a say, and yes people do listen

If and when the business you work for decides on a course of action, whether or not the 'owner' is your friend or listens to you, it will proceed with that course of action. If they decide they don't need you then you will be gone... Still not much of a choice. Just because they value your opinion or listen to you does not mean they have to or always will. IT also means nothing to other employees that may not enjoy such benefits.

That is so wrong, or are you talking the prounion rhetorical history book.

Take a history class... Better yet, name ONE employee benefit that didn't spring from the labor movement. Just one... I won't hold my breath.

Trust me, I am not dominated by a male hierarchy. Nor is Hillary or Nancy. And Im not even at their level. But they know that Unions are just pawns to help get them elected

Indeed, the US must have become matriarchal overnight. In fact there are no surviving matriarchal societies at this moment in time. You do live under a patriarchal system. You can say No, No, No, all you want but it changes nothing...

Sure, things are changing for the better but they haven't changed...

[Iam46yearsold]

You keep talking history. Unions have really lost the largest amount of their influence 50 years ago. Back when they were all allied with criminal organizations. Is that the history you keep referring to. But I can not find any significant changes by unions in reference to nursing, that are not actually directly attributed to sociopolitical consumer based demands.

Of course I haven't read the Union sponsored history books. Or the union sponsored studies either.

[Atheos]

But I can not find any significant changes by unions in reference to nursing, that are not actually directly attributed to sociopolitical consumer based demands.

Lack of research has no relation to lack of evidence of the viability of unions. The poor results by union leaders in no way means that unions are still not useful.

Because of unions, nurses have a living wage. There was a time when nurses made less than receptionists. There was a time when nurses where always on call and had to work when the hospital said so.

The problem with anti-union people, as compared to people that just aren't in unions, is that they conveniently forget that everything we have is due to the labor movement.

40 hour work week? Unions. Vacation and Sick time? Unions. OSHA and having safety equipment? Unions. I could go on ad nauseum.

Multiple studies done by nurses show that unionized hospitals deliver better care and have higher employment satisfaction.

You can say whatever you like. In the final analysis unions benefit worker more than not.

Sure, they were affiliated with criminals. Our president is a criminal... So what. There was a time where employers charged you to use the equipment they owned. They paid you so little that at the end of the week you were paying to work, Then if you felt like striking or organizing they called in private security to beat up AND kill workers that were unsatisfied with their working conditions.

Instead of trying to use sarcasm to prove your point, instead show us ONE thing that came about that benefitted workers THAT did NOT result from organized labor. Just one. Put your money where your mouth is and show us ONE...

It's easy to talk. Give us some proof. :)

Just a little...

[TopazLover, BSN, RN]

I have to agree with Stanley. Our union was instrumental in changing job descriptions to more closely follow actual work done. This increased our pay and resulted in better working conditions by decease in mand. OT. They have also prevented many of the rollbacks in insurance coverage and retirement benefits.

Strikes are never pleasant. They cause poor working relationships between middle management and labor but it really is the last resort. No one wants to go without paychecks. Usually management staff cannot step into the workers shoes as they have become too far removed from the work that needs to be done.

One of the fallacies of unions is that they represent the bad workers and ignore the good ones. While every employee is entitled to union rep. It is the good worker that gains the most from unionization. They are protected from arbitrary changes in employment/conditions.

I am very outspoken and am not personally male dominated, I recognize I live in a society that is male dominated and in need of reformation. We have come some distance since Lillian Wald, Dorothea Dix, and Lavinia Dock but have a long way to go.

Even Clara Barton said " I may sometimes be willing to teach for nothing, but if paid at all, I shall never do a man's work for less than a man's pay".

I enjoy the gains brought about by union activists and support nurses continuing to achieve better working conditions.

[herring_RN, ASN, BSN]

In August of 1966 about 3,000 registered nurses at many hospitals in the San Francisco Bay area turned in their resignation. One nurse said on TV, "The hospital pays the gardener more than it pays the nurses. Do they value the plants more than the patients?"

The nurses won a living wage. This brought their yearly pay to about the same as public school teachers. Teachers were off for two weeks at Christmas, one at Easter week, and three months in the summer.

Later that month public sector nurses held the first ever nurses strike in the United States.

The real beginning of nurses being treated as people and professionals was in 1943 when the California Nurses voted for collective bargaining.

Registered nurses were not allowed to smoke or wear nail polish on their day off. Pay was $4.00 a day. A bit less than 50 cents an hour due to time for report. 8 hour shifts were standard. Often with mandated rotating shifts.

Minimum wage in 1946 was 40 cents an hour so RNs were paid more than the minimum.

Factory workers were paid more than nurses and had no restrictions on their activities or attire when not working.

[loricatus]

You keep talking history. Unions have really lost the largest amount of their influence 50 years ago. Back when they were all allied with criminal organizations. Is that the history you keep referring to.

I am sorry; but after reading your statement, I just have to butt in here. What I learned in history and saw pieces of it myself, was that the true downfall of the Union power was related to the act by Reagan regarding the Air Traffic Controllers. He essentially started the concept that union contracts and negotiations are meaningless since you can just turn around and fire those who strike.

Don't know if you grew up in one of the union rich states because a lot of how unions contributed to safe working environments could only be seen first hand and through stories told to us by our parents and grandparents. You just cannot get a true taste for them (pro and con) being exposed only to right-to-work states.

[Iam46yearsold]

I am sorry; but after reading your statement, I just have to butt in here. What I learned in history and saw pieces of it myself, was that the true downfall of the Union power was related to the act by Reagan regarding the Air Traffic Controllers. He essentially started the concept that union contracts and negotiations are meaningless since you can just turn around and fire those who strike.

Don't know if you grew up in one of the union rich states because a lot of how unions contributed to safe working environments could only be seen first hand and through stories told to us by our parents and grandparents. You just cannot get a true taste for them (pro and con) being exposed only to right-to-work states.

Yes, that is true. Our parents and our grandparents, can tell us the way it was. In the way that they saw it. Not in the way it actually was. Again their is no proof, objective proof, that the unions did all this for nursing. outside of reading prounion rhetoric. And reading studies bought and paid for by the unions, themselves. These changes in nursing, are directly attributable to changes in technology, changes in society, changes in economics.

If unions were more effective in anyway, then teachers would truly be paid more than what they are.And rightfully so.

[herring_RN, ASN, BSN]

Yes, that is true. Our parents and our grandparents, can tell us the way it was. In the way that they saw it. Not in the way it actually was. Again their is no proof, objective proof, that the unions did all this for nursing. outside of reading prounion rhetoric. And reading studies bought and paid for by the unions, themselves. These changes in nursing, are directly attributable to changes in technology, changes in society, changes in economics.

If unions were more effective in anyway, then teachers would truly be paid more than what they are.And rightfully so.

What is the objective proof that the memories of old nurses like me, the history books, and news accounts are untrue?

Please provide objective proof that the unified actions of organized nurses is not instrumental in the changes in society that contribute to inprovements in nursing.

The fact is that nurses win improvements in patient care, salaries, and benefits in union contracts.

Then non union hospitals must make similar improvements to retain and recruit nurses.

I know WE stopped the restructuring and replacement of registered nurses by unlicensed personnel in California by writing and working for the Safe Staffing Law that makes it a crime to allow non nurses to practice nursing.

...A health facility licensed pursuant to subdivision (a),

(b), or (f), of Section 1250 of the Health and Safety Code shall not

assign unlicensed personnel to perform nursing functions in lieu of

a registered nurse and may not allow unlicensed personnel to

perform functions under the direct clinical supervision of a

registered nurse that require a substantial amount of scientific

knowledge and technical skills, including, but not limited to, any of

the following:

(1) Administration of medication.

(2) Venipuncture or intravenous therapy.

(3) Parenteral or tube feedings.

(4) Invasive procedures including inserting nasogastric tubes,

inserting catheters, or tracheal suctioning.

(5) Assessment of patient condition.

(6) Educating patients and their families concerning the patient's

health care problems, including postdischarge care.

(7) Moderate complexity laboratory tests....

http://www.calnurses.org/assets/pdf/ratios/ratios_ab_394_text.pdf

[smoke over fire]

This conversation got way sidelined!

The point is that the current system is broken and no one person by themselves can fix it. Everyone loses; the family, the patient, the nurses who carry the guilt of being put in the awful situation of put up or shut up, the other nurses who sell their souls for a few dollars, and ultimately society. We all need to work together and that means using all our resources.

Really IMHO unions are all about organizing workers to deal with management. Plain & simple. Like any community organization, it becomes what you make it.

Nurses are a different breed of unionist. We look to working with each other as a way to not only advocate, but to have some power to make those changes that are important. it's easy to ignore one person, but not 50 or even 25. And yes we really are new to the self empowerment only because we now have more professional level wages.

Besides if it was so easy for nurses to stand up for themselves without a union, then we would see a healthcare system based on prevention, where anyone was covered regardless of their financial or other status. That was the way Florence designed it.

Don't be ignorant to the fact that nurses are changing the labor movement , not the other way around.

Teachers also have similar problems, and I don't think it's a coincidence they are both female dominated professions.