What do nursing unions do?

Nurses General Nursing

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I know there has been a lot of talk about unions lately. Exactly what do they do for nurses?

Thanks for that Karen . . . all good threads with different points of view. It reminded me of the one organization that is against union representation for nurses and thought I'd post the website here for the OP. Not everyone is pro-union.

Still, I would NOT put up with being told what I could and could not say regarding a union at work. :)

http://www.onevoice-ourvoice.com/

steph

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Unions are more for the worthless employees than stellar ones. I was a traveler at a union hospital and you couldn't get ancillary staff to help you to save your life, and if it didn't get done who was ultimately responsible the RN. You can't get rid of the worthless in a union hospital and the really good employees move on at some point.

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That's just not true. People can and are fired from union jobs for cause. If a manager allows slackers to run the place, that's the manager's fault. I had that problem in a non-union hospital.

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Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
Unions are more for the worthless employees than stellar ones. I was a traveler at a union hospital and you couldn't get ancillary staff to help you to save your life, and if it didn't get done who was ultimately responsible the RN. You can't get rid of the worthless in a union hospital and the really good employees move on at some point.

Generalizations prove no points here. You can't make sweeping statements like this and convince me they are right. Yes, you can get fired in a unionized hospital. I have seen it happen several times in my own unit through the years.

Like I said before, I am not mediocre or "worthless", nor are my colleagues. And a good papertrail can help management get rid of anyone, if management/administration is at all effective. And, I have seen several who did not "make the cut" fired after documentation of lousy performance and practices showed they should not stay. Yes, I am sure in SOME cases, it is true, you can find lousy practices and nurses in unionized environments. But, I have also worked in several places, both unionized and not. Rural and urban. I have been around a bit.

I did work for a short while in a hospital once where a common running "joke" was a nurse would have to KILL someone to lose her job. I saw a couple come close to doing just that, actually. No union there at all to protect jobs........nor any place nearby. It was a very anti-union state. You know, one of those that if you uttered the word "union", you would be in trouble. It was a matter of "who you know" as to who stayed or not. Go figure. Mediocrity and good ole boy networks can be found anyplace, sadly. Even in the absence of a union......

So, if ya want to make a point, avoiding generalizations helps a lot.

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Specializes in ICU, psych, corrections.

Thanks for those links, jt!! I was dreading this Leadership project, but now I'm getting excited about it! I didn't think this kind of stuff interested me, but after reading through so much information, I realize that nurses need to stand up for themselves. For them to be heard, they need to stick together. So many of my classmates are interested in going to work and collecting their paychecks. They don't want to get involved with associations such as the ANA, etc. Hopefully, after my presentation, they will some desire to at least explore their options.

Our facility just opened its arms to the SEIU, which you had provided a link to. I had no idea they were as large as they were. The only thing I had heard is that they represented 80% of the nurses in southern NV. Apparently, they are much bigger than that. I hope that the nurses in our hospital at least look into becoming a part of this group.

Thanks again for those links...and if you have any other information regarding union vs. nonunion, please feel free to PM me!

Thanks again,

Melanie!

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Specializes in Critical Care/ICU.

The union I belong to is unique, I think, in that the union is run by and covers only the RN's of my hospital. The RN elected president of our union for this most recent 2 year term is a staff RN who is a bedside/sometimes charge RN on my ICU. The union's board is also made up of elected staff RN's from throughout the hospital. All floors/units/areas of the hospital have unit representatives who are RN's that work on those units or in those areas and there is one elected representative for each 20 nurses.

The board consists of the president, executive vice president, vice president, 2 nurse advocates, a secretary, a treasurer, and a legislative representative. Other elected positions include RN's for the negotiation committee, the ballot and election committee, and the bylaws committee. The union's legal representation consists of 3 attorney's hired by the union. This union has been in existence sice 1964.

I think this is great. This union is specific to our hospital and deals only with the uniqueness of our RN's and our hospital management. On my particular ICU, there is at least 1 unit representative working or available at any given time on any given shift. Not that we need their constant representation, but the representatives are very available all the time and are deeply aware of working conditions as they are RN's just like me.

Even though this union is exclusive to us, the union is heavily supportive of other nursing unions like the CNA but may disagree with some of the other larger union's way of doing things. This union covers a couple thousand RN's. Our LPN's, of which this hospital has only a few dozen, are covered under SEIU.

So I think I have a question for those who are knowledgeable about nursing unions....when a group of nurses are covered under a larger union such as CNA or SEIU, is the representation of a particular group of nurses at a particular hospital usually like I've described above? Or are they blanket covered by the larger president and board with unique twists for individual facilities? The thing I really like about my union is that it is made up entirely of the "grunts" (us staff nurses) who work in the "trenches" (all floors/units/areas of our hosptial). Is this generally true of the larger unions as well?

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I know our union reps are all staff nurses. (I'm in CNA)

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i grew up in a union household, so i am familiar with that perspective. i also agree that if management is responsive and respectful to workers, unionization would be a non-issue. some of you are actually lucky enough to be in that position. many others are not.

all you have to do is read threads on these boards where:

1) in many places, nurses are required to carry unreasonable/unsafe patient loads

2) can't call in when they're sick for fear of being fired or hours reduced (yes, this is in healthcare where worker health in many places is of little consequence to the corporate machine)

3) where individual nurses' licenses are daily put on the line due to unreasonable or unsafe institutional policies/procedures but speaking up would mean termination

4) where management will fire nurse(s) before placing blame on a physician or accepting responsibility for a blatant culture of institutional incompetence in procedure/policy

5) where nurses are being cast out of positions with only a few years left to retirement because they were the only ones on duty one evening when a 400 lb patient needed to be turned, managed to herniate disks in their back, and then are not allowed to receive adequate and prudent follow-up healthcare for their work related injury, the delay causing irreversible life-long disability after which they suffer the indignity of being fired from their jobs for 'poor work performance'.

6) where good nurses are in the unenviable position of daily being torn between the mandates of their licensure and the ridiculous demands of corporate bean counters and productivity micro-management that likens nursing care to tossing fish at a market. (pike place fish market in seattle training video "fish")

that's not including the situations where many nurses are receiving roughly the same pay as they did as new grads years ago, or the countless situations where nurses are disrespected, yelled at or even physically assaulted by not only patients but physicians!

as far as the morality of a strike, that's ok when institutional admin play their moral high-ground trump card isn't it? but yet, it's ok to let years of other indignities relating to treatment of workers and unsafe practices be swept under the rug, far away from public scrutiny. a strike in one industry is no more or less moral than another industry. no union 'wants' to strike. families affected by a strike can admit that they are not something anyone looks forward to. but sometimes it's a legitimate last resort when all else has failed.

i have seen first hand the power of a well-run union. for those that are lucky enough to work in good situations, please support your coworkers that aren't as fortunate, and never become complacent or think for a moment that these situations couldn't happen to you.

edited for type size...sorry!

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Specializes in Critical Care,Recovery, ED.

Cazy,

Well said. Couldn't agree more. There is an old saying in the US Labor movement. organized labor doesn't organize workers into unions, the boss (management) does.

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SO, HOW EXACTLY DO YOU GET A UNION STARTED WITHOUT ENDING UP.... :chair: !!!!!!!!!!

WE NEED A VOICE SO BADLY, BUT I UNDERSTAND THAT YOUR NAME IS DIRT IF YOU MENTION IT. NOT ONLY THAT, BUT IS IT LEGAL IN EVERY STATE? DOES EVERY STATE BOARD OF NURSING HAVE A VIEW ABOUT UNIONS?

HELP ME OUT GUYS!

THANKS

What state are you in?

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In our hospital, the only workers who are not in the Union are the Business Office and the RN's. Our hospital was strictly anti-union until 9yrs ago. I was even told during my interview (fifteen years ago) the the "u" word was a bad word and was not to be spoken!

Are you, by chance, in SEIU?

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