Unionization up for vote at my facility

[txdude35]

I work in an HCA facility that has union reps on site now in prep for a vote by staff to unionize or not.

The question is for charge nurses in unionized facilities. It seems to me that the hospital wouldn't be able to deny most of the salary, PTO etc gains made by the union to charge nurses or there would be a large scale revolt by the charges. Do any of you have experience with this? If you're a charge have you also been given salary increases to keep par with staff RNs?

I just don't see a scenario where staff RNs are making more than charge RNs.

[HM2VikingRN, RN]

As a VA nurse I receive no extra salary/differentials for my charge shifts.....That said I think our differentials are more than fair for off tour work.

Oddly enough my NM took a pay cut when she became a manager because she no longer works off tour. This has since been made up through her advancing to N III.

[herring_RN, ASN, BSN]

At many hospitals charge nurses are in the bargaining unit.

At a former Tenet hospital the charge nurses asked to be demoted so they could have union protections such as "just cause discipline". I don't know what they are paid but they say it is good. Better than before.

So the hospital uses only relief charge nurses.

At another former Tenet hospital I think the charge nurses are paid more than staff nurses.

They deserve it too. They have to try to balance their duty to the patients with pressure to improve the hospital budget.

Thankfully we have our ratio law.

[txdude35]

Thanks for the replies. At our facility charge nurses are considered management and therefore not part of the bargaining unit. We'll just have to see what happens.

[Chico David, BSN, RN]

My hospital is like yours, in that charge nurses are not in the bargaining unit and considered management. I'm not a charge nurse and don't know exactly what the pay differential is (probably in the neighborhood of 15%), but I do know that the charge nurses get all the benefits we win in union bargaining and get pay increases of the same size we do - after we bargain a new contract, we tend to hear thanks from the charges and other non-union classifications who know they will get an increase of the same size we have won.