Tufts nurses vote 70% to authorize strike

[Chin up]

Just heard on channel five, Boston. Nurses at one of Boston's biggest hospital, have just voted to authorized a one day strike. Over 70% of the nurses who voted have decided that Tufts Medical Center has a patient care problem and they are willing to go on strike to fix it. 1100 nurses could, walk away from bedside. Their union only has one issue, to force the hospital to increase nurse patient ratio and to create mandatory staffing. Something the CEO has vowed will not happen. Nurses say patient care has suffered because there are too few of them to help. One nurse said, " I am done explaining to a patient why, when the call bell rings nobody comes" and "why they are lying in wet sheets". Tufts is calling this gross hyperbole. Tufts has been reducing cost hiring less expensive techs instead of more nurses for certain bedside jobs. Tufts insist they are ranked 6, in hospital safety in the country. Nurses say hospital officials are exaggerating. Nurses want the right staff at the right time to care for what patients need. Nurses say, this is their fight! Tufts is now searching for nurses all over the country to staff the hospital for the one day strike.

Would any of you cross this picket line? Do you think the nurses are doing the right thing and why?

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

Craig's list ad is recruitment to staff this strike...

Compensation:Minimum of $5200 Per week

Location: Boston, MA

If there are no takers for this obscene weekly salary---nurses sticking together refusing to staff a strike, then hospital would be forced to bargain in good faith with nurses and resolve these serious patient safety issues.

[WIN007]

My .02:

Actually the question that occurs to me is what kind of really really obscene money the facility could possibly have negotiated to pay them that even allows them to offer min. 5200 a week.

[OC_An Khe]

$5200/week IMO is not obscene, just a little bit closer to what an RN is really worth. What is obscene is taking any amount of money to cross a picket line.

[Catch22Personified]

$5200/week IMO is not obscene, just a little bit closer to what an RN is really worth. What is obscene is taking any amount of money to cross a picket line.

If we were only actually paid that much.

If only.

[littleredmare]

I work at this hospital. The whole thing is really scary. I am an NP but I feel for the nurses on the floors. It will actually be an (at least) 5 day strike because they have to pay the hire-ins for 5 days. All nurses that work at Tufts will be "locked-out" for 5 days. We don't get paid. Who knows how long it will last. I have a friend who works at Robert Wood in Jersey and lived through a 3 week strike there.

[Mindful, RN]

........Don't Worry, Be Happy..........

[okchug]

I only wish we had unions around here...most floors are at 8:1 or 10:1! My old floor is now at 8:1 Total Care, no techs/aides....dangerous situation. Things have to change.

Good Luck to those brave nurses putting themselves out there for patient safety!

[Chin up]

$5200/week IMO is not obscene, just a little bit closer to what an RN is really worth. What is obscene is taking any amount of money to cross a picket line.

Holla!!!!

[Chin up]

tufts chief takes on nurses

vows to tap replacements during possible strike

zane told the herald she's contacted out-of-state nurses and is prepared to spend up to $4 million hiring at least 200 to keep tufts open during what she's classifying as a "very, very likely" work stoppage over a dispute about how many patients each nurse serves. the union wants a limit of four per shift-a demand zane said could cost another $33 million a year ...

... "i will never, ever agree to a nurse-staffing ratio," said zane, who has run the once-nearly bankrupt chinatown medical center for seven years and will retire sept. 30. "and i won't put this hospital in a position of financial harm, so some union can get more members."

zane's saber-rattling comes after months of negotiation between tufts administrators and nurses' representatives, who said changes in the way the hospital provides care has led to overburdened nurses and lower-quality care.

"administrators are turning hospitals into factories, and making nurses work like lucille ball on the factory line," schildmeier said. "instead of chocolates going by, these are human beings."...

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1330064

sorry, but i just want to slap her. she makes my skin crawl. she is lucky i am not violent, just sometimes, want to be. sorry all, but how i feel when i see her and hear her. this just hit a nerve, because i can see her saying it. smug, condescending, rude, spewing her rhetoric mixed with spit. she disgust me.

okay, phew, nice again! peace!

[Chin up]

Just one example from page 34:

We know that fatigue and hunger due to lack of sufficient staff to provide for meal and rest breaks lead to accidents and errors.

my anger runneth over. there is no excuse, just no excuse at all. None.

[Chin up]

I only wish we had unions around here...most floors are at 8:1 or 10:1! My old floor is now at 8:1 Total Care, no techs/aides....dangerous situation. Things have to change.

Good Luck to those brave nurses putting themselves out there for patient safety!

I wish they were everywhere. We need them at this point, more than ever before. Big business is sucking the middle class right out of us and counting ever single dime to the bank. Billions of dollars, no taxes. We make thousands of dollars and pay thousands in taxes...something is not right. Just not right.

[tewdles, RN]

As the middle class shrinks and the wealthy and corporate interests gain increasing power in the USA, unions will be limited, squeezed, and ultimately broken...just sayin...