Is this a possible CEO or AHA perspective on pending legislation?
The nurse recruitment legislation and the legislation to abolish mandatory OT are dream come through for the American Hospital Association. The CEO's have to be drooling over these 2 pieces of legislation. If I were a CEO of a hospital, I would be encouraging everyone to write to his or her legislator. I would even provide the postage as well as pay them 5 or 10 dollars to send a postcard in support of the recruitment legislation. I would on the other hand be publicly against the legislation against mandatory OT, but privately I would be telling all my other counter parts to allow it to pass without major resistance.
Now why would I do such a thing. It is simple in the long run it will be beneficial to me in keeping costs down and ensure that my personal income to rise.
How exactly would that happen you ask. Simple, the recruitment legislation will provide me with brand new needed personnel that I can use to replace the nurses who are harassing me for more money and benefits. All I have to do is to continue to pay the same stagnated wages and benefits once it passes. As experienced nurses leave, I can put in my request for more nurses. I will be paying a fare wage when compared to the other hospitals even though it might be as much as 5 dollars less than the national average. In fact, me and my friends have already talked about again freezing salaries across the country as soon as this legislation passes. Many of us have been talking about how we will be able to use this same legislation to put the reigns on the unions we have to deal with. The legislation will provide a way to cut the bargaining power the unions and nurses in general have at this moment. We as employers only need to show that we are not blatantly abusing nurses. This way the government will pay for the replacements that we will need and put us on the needs list. As an extra bonus to us, they will even prioritize on the women who are on welfare or other forms of assistance. This will be a blessing. They will see the wages we offer as a blessing even if they are lower than today's current level, not to mention the low self esteem and other unresolved negative personality issues they will be coming to us with that will allow us to keep them in check.
The anti mandatory OT issue will benefit us in 2 different way. The first one will be that of making our needs greater. If we can not use mandatory OT anymore then we will have to increase the nurse to patient ratios to provide nursing care. By doing this we will benefit in fewer staff and less out of pocket costs for staffing thus better profits. This will surely result in loosing more of the nurses who are tired and have been harassing us for better pay and benefits. We can offer extra incentives for OT in the short term while we wait for replacement nurses to show up and we can continue to slowly increase nurse to patient ratios at the same time. By the time legislation is passed and goes into effect, if ever, The first group of replacement nurses will be ready to step in. I do not foresee a problem with bogging down any type of legislation or getting a time frame set that is in our favor for compliance to start.
The way this is all coming together is great. We could not have done a better job if we would have done it ourselves. We owe the ANA a big thank you for all they have done on our behalf. Just think all this plus the increased limits on foreign nurses that will pass, we will have control once again, as though we ever actually lost it. We will all have to meet with the genius from the Cleveland Clinic to get his input as well.
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I am not saying that one day recruitment legislation like this will not be needed and beneficial, I am just saying that it is going to undermine all the things we as nurses could improve today. In short, this legislation, if enacted, will help to defeat the real progress which nursing as a whole could benefit from. I hope that in a few years when someone asks what the ANA has done for you lately that you will remember this. This is going to take away yet again the chance that nurses can once and for all take control of our own professions and futures. Everyone is going to benefit from this legislation except the nurses who want to remain at the bedside.
If you have not taken the time to look over the legislation being pushed by the ANA, then I would encourage you to do so. It is easy to read. While you are reading it, keep in mind the climate that is going to exist in the minds of the public in general as each area chimes in declaring an emergency to get on the list of needs. What do you think will happen to any nurse opposition by saying no to their need for any reason? Please take the time to read through the entire bills, at first they start out a little different and become more. There are some parts that could be used today such as the advertisement/orientations to High Schools while focusing efforts on actually solving our problems first, but the way the way they are written, it is either all or nothing.
http://thomas.loc.gov/
Nurse Reinvestment Act (S. 1597, H.R. 1436) and the Nursing Employment and Education Development Act (S. 721)
If you are not familiar whit what happened at the Cleveland Clinic and surrounding area please take the time to familiarize yourself.
https://allnurses.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=11674
To those who say that if you are not a ANA member you have no right to complain or get upset, if it directly affects your future then you do have a right. For the vast majority of us it is either the ANA or nothing, now as a nurse who wants to stay at the bedside why would I want to support an organization who is so intent on selling (not sailing) me down the river. Can anyone say who works at the bedside that this is good leadership?
If you are not up to date on ANA's stance on importing foreign nurses then take the time to look at this:
https://allnurses.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=12321
I am just a nurse who works at the bedside who would like to remain there and who is looking for a brighter future with real progress being made. How can I argue with the intelligence or logic of the ANA in this mater. They see a 7 to 8% membership ratio as a majority approval of how good of a job they are doing? This is probably close to the same percentage of members of the Taliban in Afghanistan who actually controlled the country. We need a new national organization with leadership who will attract nurses and change the direction and focus on the needs and wants of the majority of nurses without selling anyone down the river.
Someone said to me in another post to either lead, follow, or get out of the way. I refuse to get out of the way because this is my possible future and existence that is at stake here. I refuse blindly follow a group that is going to sell me down the river due to their lack of logic. Unfortunately I am a man in a female dominated profession and would not be seen as a good leader without fostering feelings of resentment in the long run as too the leadership style that is needed. A woman would be the best candidate even though she would probably get resentment in a different form, she by just the fact of her gender would be easier to accept and follow under the existing climate.
If you agree that the direction that the current legislation if passed will then take nursing away from actual change by undermining the position we have now, then let everyone know that you do not support the ANA as a nurse and /or the pending legislation. This is your future especially if you plan or want to stay at the bedside. It is your future do not let it go down the drain.
http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/call/e-mail.htm
http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.cfm
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
Please remember that I stated a while back that legislation like this would zoom through congress because it would basically go unopposed. I also stated that any legislation that went to heart of our problems in nursing would drag on and be opposed at every turn. The ANA has found a way to appease the powers that be while at the same time setting up the nurses at the bedside for a hard reality of things to come. With leadership, and I use that term loosely, like this, is it any wonder we are in the shape we are in today?
