To unionize or not...

nicurn001 · Mar 2, 2011

Capecodmermaid , you can find idiots in any place of employment . The people you describe can be found in non union places of employment , if they are protected by TPTB ( who take the place of a union protector in their case ).

It boils down to management having the will / desire to manage and applying the applicable laws / policies .

Vanillanut, DNP, RN, APRN · Mar 2, 2011

I've worked for unionized and non-unionized places. I got screwed on pretty much every non-union job I've ever worked at. The union has to be effective in order to have the changes sought by nurses, otherwise it's pointless and probably more of a hassle then it's worth. My union now is pretty good as far as unions go- they'll stand up for you when you're being taken advantage of (my colleague is going through this now, and I have in the past with the same hospital).... good wages, good benefits, no such thing as push-backs or etc. If we're on call it's $3/hr but as I'm FT I'm never on call. We must know our schedules 6 weeks in advance, and if something changes in that amount of time we must agree to those changes. If our shift needs to be extended, we're asked if we want to stay (at overtime rate) but aren't expected to. If we're called in our off time, no expectations are there that we must come in.

I read some of these boards and thank God for my current job! :nurse:

Chico David, BSN, RN · Mar 3, 2011

I've worked in union and non union places. The union was wonderful for the crappy workers who didn't do a good job. We were having a late admission one day and a bed had to be moved. I asked one of the nurses (who was much younger than I) to help me move a bed. His answer: Not in my contract. The union gave him the right to be rude and disrespectful.
I worked at a hospital with a union. The ward clerk didn't bathe...she reeked. When it was mentioned to her that her hygiene was lacking, her response: It's not in the contract that I have to bathe. It wasn't until a year later when the contract was renegotiated and the language "all employees must bathe on a regular basis' was added that she took a shower.

"The union" has nothing to do with the kind of things you describe. It's simply crappy and incompetent management. The idea that someone could not be required to bathe unless it was in the contract is simply absurd. There is a thing in labor law called "management rights" which says that basically the management gets to do all the things that management normally does - and things like dress codes and hygeine standards would definitely be in that category - "except as specified in the contract" So if a thing is not mentioned in the contract, and there is no overriding law that controls, then management can do whatever they want just as they could in a non-union workplace.

I am the one who does much of the grievance/discipline stuff at my hospital and was a manager for 13 years, so I've been through it from all angles. What a union contract guarantees is simply due process. Management still has the right to do the things that management normally does. If a worker is not measuring up, in a union environment they have to be told how they are not measuring up and what is expected of them, then given a reasonable time to improve and their failure to improve documented. If disciplinary action is taken, and the employee wants to fight it, the union has an obligation to represent the employee, but management can deny the grievance and a union will only go to arbitration with grievances they are pretty confident of winning.

So any manager who has a genuinely poor worker and says they can't do anything about it "because of the union" is simply saying that they are too lazy to do their job properly and go through the steps they need to go through.

billyboblewis · Mar 3, 2011

I wonder if the people who posted on this subject know that the bargaining agent (Union) for RN's in most facilities that are Unionized is the American Nursing Association

allnurses Guide · Mar 3, 2011

I wonder if the people who posted on this subject know that the bargaining agent (Union) for RN's in most facilities that are Unionized is the American Nursing Association

Not anymore - https://allnurses.com/collective-bargaining-nursing/uan-nnoc-mna-371472.html

Chico David, BSN, RN · Mar 3, 2011

I wonder if the people who posted on this subject know that the bargaining agent (Union) for RN's in most facilities that are Unionized is the American Nursing Association

That's actually not true. The ANA as such does no collective bargaining at all and is now largely an organization of management and academic nurses. Even long ago, all the collective bargaining contracts were held by the various states that were members of the ANA rather than with the ANA itself. Some states did collective bargaining, others did not. Some years back, (if I understand the history correctly) because the ANA was dominated by nurse managers, a court decision required them to spin off the collective bargaining part as a quasi-independent organization called the UAN - United American Nurses. Then over the last several years, the UAN broke up a bit, with various states leaving for various reasons. Finally, a couple of years ago those states that remained in UAN joined together with California and Massachusetts - who had left much earlier - to form National Nurses United, which is now much the largest nurse union and not affiliated in any way with ANA. Another group of ex-UAN states have their own much smaller multi-state organization, but I can't remember what it's called. Pretty confusing history.

Finally, because quite a few state nurses associations never did collective bargaining (and some who did were not very effective) and there were nurses in those states who wanted to unionize, various non-nursing unions have represented (and still do) limited numbers of nurses. These include Teamsters, Laborers, SEIU, American Federation of Teachers and others.

I hope and believe that eventually, most of it will come together under the NNU banner, but there are lots of reasons why that process will be slow.

TravelinCEN · Mar 5, 2011

Chico David RN and others,

Thank you for the lessons. I wanted to hear some different points of view, and certainly got it.

Has anyone ever heard that the reason that some institutions introduce Magnet is to "pacify" nurses, thus shutting out the unions?

I know very little about this, but thought that it was both interesting and plausible when I heard the theory.

What do you think?

Chico David, BSN, RN · Mar 5, 2011

Chico David RN and others,
Thank you for the lessons. I wanted to hear some different points of view, and certainly got it.
Has anyone ever heard that the reason that some institutions introduce Magnet is to "pacify" nurses, thus shutting out the unions?
I know very little about this, but thought that it was both interesting and plausible when I heard the theory.
What do you think?

Beyond a doubt. Magnet status is several things:

1 A money maker for the agency that confers it.

2. A marketing tool for the hospital

3. A way of giving nurses the illusion of some power and voice to reduce the chances that they will seek real power and voice.

Real power is coming as equals to a bargaining table, not having a channel to submit suggestions.

It has been an interesting discussion. And may have some life yet.