Unionization for Maryland RN's

[colesedwards]

I am curious, now that I will be coming up on my 3rd year as an RN in February and can take a breath and look around (man, they are not joking when they tell you in school you are considered a "novice" RN for two years because it really does take that long to feel confident-at least it did for me) I am wondering about unionization in Maryland. The hospital I work for the largest private employer in the state and it seems weird to me that there is no union in Maryland for RN's.

There are so many misconceptions about unions and I wonder if those are partly to blame for the absence of them in our State. I believe that the School RN's have a union but that is partly because they are part of the school system which is nationally unionized. There would be so many benefits to being unionized if there was support.

Traditionally the State Board of Nursing has used its platform to call for nursing reform and improvements which there have been many. The Compact States, the streamlining of NP contracts/legal doctuments come to mind immediately but what else can we do as Nurses?

What can we do for ourselves to better serve our patient populations? How better can we be organized to support one another?

I am most interested to hear all perspectives on this topic-pro and con! :)

[Jules A, MSN]

I also think a nursing union would be worth every penny but the hospitals really lobby against them.

[caroladybelle, BSN, RN]

Many of us that have worked in union and in nonunion facilities. Given my 18 years of experience, including 7+ years as a traveler, I have no desire to ever working in a union environment as a staff nurse. And at my current job, the departments that are unionized are the worst depts to deal with.

And comparatively speaking, MD hospitals have much better pay/conditions and pay than the vast majority of facilities that I have dealt. Thus less need for unions.

[colesedwards]

I don't see unions only about pay scale. I can see that unions would help secure patient ratios, improve safety, decrease burnout, decrease mistakes, offer support. I really want to stay at my facility but we get a 1-2% increase each year and if I want to ever make more money (other than a 50 cent raise each year) I will have to move to another job at another hospital. Each year my experience increases, I take CEU's, attend seminars, gain creditentials and stay on. I think unions could help nurses who are doing a service to their facilty by staying and negotiating better pay and decreased patient ratios.

I think my pay is okay but nursing is a dead end job if want to stay at the same hospital it seems. maybe its just my hospital?