They laid off a lot of nurses now they want us back.

[Brian]

It looks like a lot of places are laying off people just to call them back a few months later. Is this happening in your area? Some people believe corporations/businesses are doing it because they legitimately need to reduce costs - even if just a short period of time. Other people think that this is just a scheme to get veteran nurses to reduce their salaries. What do you think?

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[swansonplace]

I am a new student just graduating. I live in a southern right to work state, and there are more nurses than nursing jobs. Many employers are having the nurses take on more patients than can safely be handled. This greatly concerns me, as if anything is said about this, one can loose the job, and even worse a patient can get hurt and my hard earned liscense will be gone. So I am looking into options. One option is to go with a union to make sure basic nursing rights and safety is kept in. Please tell me if this is a false idea or is true. I am not so concerned with the wages, as much as the safety issues of the patients and nurses.

[PMFB-RN, RN]

I have not heard of this but it would be a great way for a place to get rid of their top performers. If I were laid off I sure would not wait around hoping to be called back. I'd be beating the streets to find another job and would not return even if they offered a raise or bonus. Even if I were not laid off, I'd look for another employer. Who would want to work for someone who treats their employees that way? Are the examples of places that have done this recently?

*** EXACTLY! Of the laid off nurses who is most likely to be able to land another, possibly better, job and thus be much less likely to come back? The top performers. Of the laid off nurses the ones the hospital will get back are those who were unable to get other jobs, the average and less than average nurses.

Seems stupid, but of course that makes it irresistible to administration types.

[IamSusan]

For the new nurses: I have seen the before and after regarding unionization at the hospital I spent most of my career at and I prefer having a union. The vote for unionization was intense. Administration and nursing management campaigned hard against the union. We looked into unionization after being basically being treated as another commodity the hospital has to order to make money. After the union pay went up in a big way, and yes, that matters. But what I think is really important is that safety rules in regards to staffing now have teeth. Some of what we used have to tolerate was just insane in regards to staffing. We basically had no rights, and frankly, the patients didn't have a "right" to safe staffing. Now there are ratios and penalties for not sticking to the ratios. That just wasn't the case before. I have been reading a thread where nurses complain bitterly about being nurses, how awful they are treated, and wish they had never chosen the career. I think it's possible I might have felt that way without the union. Often, nurses are shamed by those threatened by unions into feeling less than professional to vote for unionization. What I have experienced, myself, is that nursing unions protect the rights of nurses to be treated as professionals, not a commodity in the marketplace, and that nurses and patients benefit.

[swansonplace]

How can I tell if a union works to provide the safe ratios for nurses, and safety. I am not interested in just having one dictate rules that hurt everyone involved. How can I find out what hospitals hire with these unions.

[greygooseuria]

I think this is a load of :poop:! In my opinion, I believe it is next to impossible for a nurse with a valid license to get unemployment due to the many areas that a nurse can go into; whether those areas are hiring or not. Why play with people's lives like that? If I were (or was? still have trouble with that one...) a laid-off nurse, that would be considered a bridge burned as far as I'm concerned! If they did it once, they will do it again. Hopefully, those doing the lay-offs are in possession of some sort of skills or have a license lying around collecting dust. They are going to need them if they are waiting for me to come back.

It's "If I were" so you were right :) (it's the English subjunctive so it is conjugated differently.)

[greygooseuria]

Unions CANNOT stop layoffs, so that is a moot point. My mom has been in a union in every job she's ever had, and has been laid off 5 times in her life so far (was going to go on 6 this month but was able to bid on another job in her organization, causing someone with less seniority to get laid off and taking a 6k/yr paycut). This PLUS her benefits have been slashed to all hell.

[SummerGarden, BSN, MSN, RN]

Unions CANNOT stop layoffs, so that is a moot point.

Nope, not true! It is not a moot point.

I work for two huge facilities with some of the biggest unions in the country. When there was a layoff of union positions within both facilities (two of the biggest hospital systems of my State), the unions of those facilities negotiated new positions within the companies for the laid off workers. Those that could not negotiate the same position was able to work with his/her Union to re-train for another position within the same company or another company.

Find me a facility in a Red Right-To-Work State that will re-train or assist employees in getting a new job after a layoff and is not supported by Unions! Thus, if your Mom did not experience this, it sounds like her contract was either not any good or she did not fight to cover herself (she was not involved). It happens. Unions are not perfect, but they are made better with active involvement from the workers because Unions belong to and are made up of us (the average American Worker).

[greygooseuria]

Yeah, except if the company is laying off because it lacks funds, training for a new position does nothing to remedy it BECAUSE THE ORGANIZATION WILL STILL LACK FUNDS.

[SummerGarden, BSN, MSN, RN]

Yeah, except if the company is laying off because it lacks funds, training for a new position does nothing to remedy it BECAUSE THE ORGANIZATION WILL STILL LACK FUNDS.

Note, how I stated above that in some cases people get trained to work for other companies. As for "Lack of funds", most companies that have major layoffs do not do so because they lack funds. That is the Executives' poor excuse, but it is not the reality.

Unless that company actually shuts down and NO LONGER EXISTS, that company did not lack funds prior to the layoffs. Rather, the top executives made decisions to cut expenses at the cost of their average American worker! Those companies care about their CEOs and those at the top and not their workers. In fact, this subject goes back to the OP original post/cartoon. Layoffs are used as an expense saving tactic by upper management; that is all. If you pay attention, you will also see this to be true.

After major layoffs top CEOs receive major bonuses and higher pay (enough to have kept most if not all of the workers depending on the size of the company). Thus, if you want to believe that a company lacks funds because the CEO said so, but can some how by magic can keep the company's doors open, expand the company, and pay their CEO and similar top Execs big bonuses and big wages at the same time, then go ahead. Continue to feel sorry for the top 1% that treats the average American worker as the enemy.

Also be sure to work in areas where the cloud of unemployment, low pay, terrible benefits, and poor working conditions will define your everyday work experience. I will continue to work in areas that are Pro-Union, that are not Right-to-Work States, and will continue to support/be involved in my Union.

[PMFB-RN, RN]

I fully disagree, it's more times than not the fault of unions that drive the cost of doing business so high that layoffs, shutdowns, cost increases and bankruptcies are inevitable. Case in point are all the public employees in California whose benefit costs exceed the salaries they were paid while working. I don't have any union brothers and sisters and wouldn't ever want any. There was a point in time when unions made sense but everything I see now days from unions is not good and closer to communism than I care to be.

*** Right, play the communism card. Next the leader of Germany during WWI will be dragged into it. It's fine with me for you to hold whatever opinion you do of unions. However to compare them to communism smacks of either VAST ignorance of communism, or a play for an emotional reaction.

I work in a union hospital. Nobody has to join the union. Union dues are voluntary. Our union can not bargain for wages or benefits. What they can do is bargain for working conditions. The union is the only thing standing between unfair (in the case of the nurses) and unsafe (in the case of the patients) staffing levels.

If I can avoid it I will never work in a non-union hospital hospital. I was fired from a job for no other reason that I made too much money. I was working weekend option (as I had been begged to do by management) making time and a half for each hour I worked. We got a new administration and next thing you know all the weekend option people were fired. Not laid off, fired. We cost too much money. There was no "Hey PMFB, due to budget concerns we are eliminating the weekend program. You have a month to find another job or accept a non-weekend position here". Nobody was told why I was fired. that left people to assume it had been for drugs or something since that was the usual reason people were fired suddenly. It damaged my professional reputation and I was unemployed for a whole 3 day weekend. I am listed as eligible for rehire and they tried to rehire me about two weeks later. I told them to jump in a lake. As predicated the weekend program is back. Of course the rest of the nurses who had to go from working every 4th to every other weekend without any sort of weekend differential started leaving in droves and the hospital had to spend vast amounts of money recruiting and training many new nurses to replace them. To stop the hemorrhaging of experienced and skilled nurses they re-started the weekend option.

[amygarside]

it would be practical for hospitals to call their nurses back since they already know the system and they have experiences already. IMHO