The Dark Side of Unions

[ThePrincessBride]

For years, unions have been praised for protecting workers' rights and providing a fairer system for the "little guy", often overlooking the faults in a potential union. I currently work at such a hospital. I have worked in both the union and non-union branches of this hospital, and here are some things I have noticed:

1. Mandated shifts: In the non-union branch, nurses were not mandated to work over their scheduled shift. However, on the unit I currently work, nurses are mandated on a weekly basis (16 hour shifts). So a nurse could potentially work from 7pm-7 am, be forced to work until 11am and then turn around and come back for another 12-hour night shift.

2. Nurse-staff ratio: Nurses at the non-union branch could not refuse a seventh patient and nurse-patient ratios were protected. Oftentimes, the busy med-surg nurse had to pick up a sixth or seventh patient. At the unit I work on, the nurses get 5 patients, but I have often seen them with a sixth patient. From other floors, I've heard med-surg nurses getting 8+ patients. What is the point in being in a union, again?

3. Bureacracy: Everything at the non-union hospital seemed to be much less complicated. Wanted to pick up hours at another unit? Easy. Just sign up. Missing an SCD pump or a bed side commode? Borrow for another floor. At the union hospital, there is so much red tape. Picking up on other floors is tough if you aren't in the float pool. Need housekeeping to clean up a spill? You have to dial for environmental services, describe the spill, the room number, in much detail and wait until housekeeping showed up. Oh, and by the way, housekeeping can only clean up after four discharges. :banghead:At the non-union hospital, housekeeping had assigned floors. We did not have to go through such a lengthy process to clean up a simple mess, nor did we have to order SCD pumps and ask the manager to buy bed side commodes.

4. Seniority: The union branch seems to be very keen on seniority. At the non-union hospital, holidays were rotated. At the union branch, however, senior nurses got all the shifts they wanted. Forget about the young new nurse whose baby is celebrating their first Christmas. In my opinion, rotating holidays and weekends is a fairer system. No one should have to wait years and years and years to be able to get those vacation days approved.

5. You have to pay into the union. 30 bucks a month adds up pretty quickly!

So, don't get me wrong. Not all union hospitals and non-union hospitals are as described, neither can they all be categorized/stereotyped. These are just some of the observations I have personally noted. While I think unions are generally a good thing, they have a dark side to them as well.

[BrandonLPN, LPN]

I agree that having to work every holiday is ridiculous. I've never heard of such a thing. All places I've seen rotate, both union and non-union.

As for the staffing ratio.... I was under the impression that California's powerful RN union played a key role in ensuring the 5 pt max ratio for med/surg. In general, unions bring down nurse/pt ratios.

[loriangel14, RN]

I work ina unionzed facility and I haven't experienced any of the stuff you have described.

1.Never happens.

2.We have no mandated ratios but we can refuse if the load is too much.

3.We borrow from other floors all the time.And I pick up on other units as well. All it takes is a call.Do you want to work on this floor? They are short.

4.We rotate holidays. Seniority only really matters when it comes to applying for jobs internally.

5.$30 buck? Really? That's not that much.

It sounds like these are issues of management where you work, not the unions fault.

[caliotter3]

Once worked for a home health agency that was, uncharacteristically, union for two job classifications. Will always remember the demeanor of the boss who told me just exactly how they circumvented the union when it came to dealing with employees. Quite enlightening that little talk was. Nice to think that the union is 'there' for the employee, but not necessarily the case.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

But at the union hospital, this has been an issue with some of the med-surg floors where nurses are getting 8+ patients (have heard even as much as eleven from former nurses who've worked on those floors...yikes!) Again, I ask: what is the point of having a union if that union isn't doing its job?

I think you're misunderstanding the role of the union. They enforce ratios only if they are negotiated into the nurses' contract with the facility. If the nurses who are on the bargaining committee don't negotiate for ratios, there are no ratios for the union to enforce.

I didn't say it was good, I was merely stating that was what was happening. Both non-union and union nurses are getting loaded with unsafe patient ratios (in my opinion).

Again, it's only the role of the union to enforce ratios if they are negotiated into the contract.

It has everything to do with a union.

How does the role of housekeeping and the process to obtain supplies have ANYTHING to do with the union?

Where did I say that you should? I am arguing that the young nurse shouldn't be forced to work every holiday.

What is the language in the contract with regard to holidays? Your OP didn't say anything about new nurses working every holiday, you said that it's not fair for the young nurse with a baby to have to miss baby's first Christmas because senior nurses get preference for shifts. Sorry, that is fair. If the nurses are unhappy with the way holidays are done at their facility, they have the power to put new language into their next contract. As an aside, I worked at a non-union hospital and our holidays weren't rotated either. New Years' Day was full of the most senior nurses while Christmas had the newest nurses on- EVERY year. For five years, I worked every Thanksgiving and part of Christmas.

But this union hospital I'm working at isn't doing what it is supposed to do. Tell me, would you flush thirty dollars down the toilet every month for empty promises?

Have you read the contract? What is it that the union is supposed to do that they're not doing, per the language in the contract? I would view union dues as a kind of insurance. I currently pay about $90/month for short term disability- which I have never needed. But with a complicated medical history, it's too big of a risk not to buy it. I might never use it but if I need to, I'll be very glad that I've spent this money on it.

What kind of "empty promises" do you think the union has made? Have you actually read the contract?

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

Each hospital within the Union negotiating powers have individual contracts. I have found that Unions that are run by nurses (like the MNA) and not SEIU itself have better contracts. Even within one entity like the MNA each facility has their own contract. For the most part the MNA negotiates excellent contracts at the facilities I had worked at.....no mandatory cancel, safe staffing, extremely limited mandated OT, float restriction to like units only.

Good solid protections.

[joanna73, BSN, RN]

30 bucks a month is reasonable. I pay approximately 100 per month for my union dues.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

For years, unions have been praised for protecting workers' rights and providing a fairer system for the "little guy", often overlooking the faults in a potential union. I currently work at such a hospital. I have worked in both the union and non-union branches of this hospital, and here are some things I have noticed:

1. Mandated shifts: In the non-union branch, nurses were not mandated to work over their scheduled shift. However, on the unit I currently work, nurses are mandated on a weekly basis (16 hour shifts). So a nurse could potentially work from 7pm-7 am, be forced to work until 11am and then turn around and come back for another 12-hour night shift.

2. Nurse-staff ratio: Nurses at the non-union branch could not refuse a seventh patient and nurse-patient ratios were protected. Oftentimes, the busy med-surg nurse had to pick up a sixth or seventh patient. At the unit I work on, the nurses get 5 patients, but I have often seen them with a sixth patient. From other floors, I've heard med-surg nurses getting 8+ patients. What is the point in being in a union, again?

3. Bureacracy: Everything at the non-union hospital seemed to be much less complicated. Wanted to pick up hours at another unit? Easy. Just sign up. Missing an SCD pump or a bed side commode? Borrow for another floor. At the union hospital, there is so much red tape. Picking up on other floors is tough if you aren't in the float pool. Need housekeeping to clean up a spill? You have to dial for environmental services, describe the spill, the room number, in much detail and wait until housekeeping showed up. Oh, and by the way, housekeeping can only clean up after four discharges. :banghead:At the non-union hospital, housekeeping had assigned floors. We did not have to go through such a lengthy process to clean up a simple mess, nor did we have to order SCD pumps and ask the manager to buy bed side commodes.

4. Seniority: The union branch seems to be very keen on seniority. At the non-union hospital, holidays were rotated. At the union branch, however, senior nurses got all the shifts they wanted. Forget about the young new nurse whose baby is celebrating their first Christmas. In my opinion, rotating holidays and weekends is a fairer system. No one should have to wait years and years and years to be able to get those vacation days approved.

5. You have to pay into the union. 30 bucks a month adds up pretty quickly!

So, don't get me wrong. Not all union hospitals and non-union hospitals are as described, neither can they all be categorized/stereotyped. These are just some of the observations I have personally noted. While I think unions are generally a good thing, they have a dark side to them as well.

In a union hospital, if you ARE mandated, you are guaranteed a certain amount of pay. For example, in my last hospital if we were mandated to stay over four hours, we got time-and-a-half. If we stayed for sixteen hours, it was doubletime for the entire shift, PLUS time and a half for the NEXT shift. Where I work now, and the place could benefit from a union, we can work an extra 3 hours and 59 minutes for NO extra pay, not even hourly pay for that time. It's only if we work more than 240 hours in six weeks that we get ANY extra pay at all.

In the union hospital, if we were given an assignment that was unsafe -- too many patients, or too much acuity -- we filled out "assignment under protest" paperwork. If something untoward happened because we were too busy to get to a patient, it was the supervisor who was under fire for not ensuring safe staffing. And when we were called into management's office to talk about how we could possibly have failed to check on that patient for two hours, thus allowing him to fall out of bed (or whatever), a union representative was sitting beside us to ensure that we were treated fairly.

Red tape -- happens everywhere.

Seniority is a GOOD thing. Why should the new nurse who has a baby celebrating it's first Christmas have preferential treatment when it comes to getting the holiday off? That baby is too young to read the calendar and won't notice if Santa comes on December 25 or the 28. That old nurse may be celebrating Christmas with her mother for the LAST time, or with her daughter on leave from Afghanistan. There's nothing quite like working on the same unit for 15 years and being told you can't have your preferred holiday off because "the new grads will all quit if they don't get Christmas." Holiday staffing should be FAIR -- meaning everyone gets some of the holidays off. But staffing disputes solved using seniority is both fair and predictable. You change jobs every year, you won't build enough seniority to get the schedule of your choice, but someone who stays should be rewarded.

Thirty bucks a month isn't much to pay for all the benefits a union gives you. I suggest that you look a little closer.

[amoLucia]

Am reading this post late.

Don't know if I've missed something here. I clearly understand that unions can only enforce something if it's written into the contract as KelRN215 and others comment. So my question to OP is if (and this is the big IF) something really is in the contract and it's being violated by management, has anyone brought it to the attention of the union??? Has anyone filed a formal grievance???

It was also pointed out that there are some good unions out there; there are some radical, hell-raising ones and there are some just so-so unions. I don't know which union represents OP but she feels hers must be one of the so-so group.

Having said that, I haven't been union in a looong time so I don't know how union dues run. But is she getting what she pays for? I mean, $30/month isn't too much of a fee. That's like $360 a year. Sheesh, I pay $200 more for just 6 months of auto insurance here in NJ. So maybe she doesn't have a strong union which could explain a weak contract. (NOTE: that's not her fault that she has a weak union.) But as others so well point out, some activism is needed to power-up her union.

All this goes back to 1) what's in the contract; 2) is it being violated; and 3) has it been formally grieved?

[loriangel14, RN]

Where I work grievances do happen when the contract isn't being followed.Or we can just bring it to the attention of management.When things are done that violate the contract are grieved then they are obligated to correct the wrong.

[amoLucia]

Where I work grievances do happen when the contract isn't being followed.Or we can just bring it to the attention of management.When things are done that violate the contract are grieved then they are obligated to correct the wrong.

My point exactly! But I have found that staff are freq hesitant and even reluctant to take that step. Maybe they'll talk to a supervisor but its just in general conversation. To go formal with the union is infrequent (altho I have met freq flyers who'll grieve if the sun didn't shine that morning (LOL). I don't understand why; I guess they're waiting for something to resolve by divine intervention!

One of my staff on 11-7 was the place's union shop steward. She would tell me of the staff apathy when there would be meetings. And when she would try to solicit staff input for upcoming negotiations, it was like she was pulling their teeth. Oh but after... boy did everyone have opinions and whines.

As shop steward she was required to sit in for disciplinary meetings. She just made sure everything was going along as required. My administration was very straightforward re following the contract's disciplinary process and infractions. Things were well documented. Cut & dry. Then came the protests. I remember one employee looking at her to speak up for him. She explained "I'm your union steward, not your lawyer. You have the right to appeal".

We're back to 1) true contract violations; and 2) correct conflict resolution. Things have to be handled right form the get-go.

[JM284]

I currently work for in a hospital with several different unions employed there. The union is there to protect you. You are very fortunate if every time your contract comes up your employer does not want to take anything away from you. Every time our contract comes up the union fights to keep shift differentials, sick days and affordable healthcare. Nurses are currently on strike in the NE because the hospital will not promise to move their jobs as the hospital relocates services to satellite locations. This would enable the hospital to spend less on its employees. Healthcare institutions need to value educated and experienced staff. People are not widgets and neither patients nor staff should be treated as such.