Why aren't more nurses and nursing facilities unionized?

PMFB-RN, RN · May 14, 2011

Well some nurses are opposed to unions. In my state (Wisconsin) there is only one union hospital and it's the state university hospital. At my last hospital attempting to union organize would get you fired. Of course they wouldn't say the firing was for union organizing.

Ev1987 · May 14, 2011

Well some nurses are opposed to unions. In my state (Wisconsin) there is only one union hospital and it's the state university hospital. At my last hospital attempting to union organize would get you fired. Of course they wouldn't say the firing was for union organizing.

And I feel it is completely wrong to leave employees in a state of fear to fight for their rights and voice in what they believe in. I suppose this is an ugly side of nursing that I've been hearing about...

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · May 14, 2011

Some regions of the U.S. are vehemently anti-union. The Southern and Southeastern states tend to be the most anti-union, and to this day I have not fully figured out the reason(s) for this mindset.

I am originally from California, which is generally friendly toward hospital unionization. However, I have been living in Texas for the past six years, and there's only one hospital in the entire state that is unionized. Even worse, the hospital barely became unionized not too long ago.

Nurses around here give excuses for not wanting to unionize such as "I'm a professional and not a factory worker," "Unions prevent management from working together with floor nurses," "I don't want to pay union dues," and so forth.

I once read a statistic that only 16 percent of all U.S. hospitals are unionized.

Chin up · May 14, 2011

Because once you decide to go union, and you have the majority in agreement, very excited, committed and vocal about it, and you have meetings, and meetings with everyone in agreement, and then are completely sure it is time to vote for or against, you find management has been working fervently behind the scenes, promising everything in the phonebook, and you find all this out, after the nay vote.......by then, management reneges on every promise and those disillusioned nays, now want to vote again, but those of us who busted butt, risked and lost jobs over it....refuse! Peace!

RNperdiem, RN · May 14, 2011

Because sometimes you exchange one set of problems for another.

tokmom, BSN, RN · May 14, 2011

Because sometimes you exchange one set of problems for another.

Just curious on why you think unions cause problems?

PMFB-RN, RN · May 14, 2011

Just curious on why you think unions cause problems?

*** They do. I now work in a union hospital and definitely prefer it. However it can be a pain in the neck. For example my manager could not give me the schedule I wanted due to union rules, even though I am the only nurse in my job at night and nobody else will be affected by my schedule. Another problem caused by our union is getting the floor nurses to learn anything new. Whenever there is a new procedure or equipment the hospital would like them to learn they run to the union and it turns into a huge deal. Usually they refuse to do it and them I (the rapid response nurse) has to do it.

caliotter3 · May 14, 2011

Once worked for an employer where there was an attempt to unionize, but the employees voted it down, by a very convincing majority.

ckh23, BSN, RN · May 15, 2011

Just curious on why you think unions cause problems?

Because sometimes your union "leaders" are just as greedy as the hospital and have their own agendas to push. For example I worked at a unionized hospital and our union board were all home health nurses. Well come time for contract negotiations and what was the main topic? That home health nurses should make the same base rate as a staff RN in the hospital. I voted NO, but they still pushed the issue. It really peeved me because they weren't listening to the union members and I don't think a home health nurse should have been making the same base as a staff RN in the hospital. The union also makes it next to impossible to get rid of the terrible nurses in the hospital.

To the OP: Hospitals and facilities spend big $$$ to prevent unions from forming.

tokmom, BSN, RN · May 15, 2011

*** They do. I now work in a union hospital and definitely prefer it. However it can be a pain in the neck. For example my manager could not give me the schedule I wanted due to union rules, even though I am the only nurse in my job at night and nobody else will be affected by my schedule. Another problem caused by our union is getting the floor nurses to learn anything new. Whenever there is a new procedure or equipment the hospital would like them to learn they run to the union and it turns into a huge deal. Usually they refuse to do it and them I (the rapid response nurse) has to do it.

It's not the union. It's the negotiating team, aka as your co-workers who make up your contract. Put yourself on the team and maybe you can get your hours. :)

We just spent a year negotiating our contract. We had issues, almost had a strike over staffing, but it was worth that year that I spent around that table fighting for nurses rights. We tweaked the smallest things too, like verbage. ALL of this is controlled and changable (is that a word? lol) by you and your team mates.

good luck!

Chico David, BSN, RN · May 15, 2011

various items here:

First, to the original question:

Numerous reasons:

1. History: beginning in the early 20th century, the ANA and the various state nurses assns. became established as the "voice" of nursing. Many/most of those were/are dominated by managers and academic nurses and have chosen not to become involved in collective bargaining. There have been several huge exceptions, most notably California, (CNA) which negotiated its first collective bargaining contracts in about 1946. Even then, it was hampered for many years by the fact that managers dominated the overall organization and distrusted/sabotaged collective bargaining. Then came the revolution: in 1993 the staff nurses overthrew the old regime, elected a majority of bedside nurses to the board of directors and ultimately changed the bylaws to require that the leadership be direct-care non-supervisory nurses. Since then, rapid growth, better contracts, etc. Since 2004, rapid growth outside California.

2. Massive spending by management on union busting. Since the 1970s, there has been a major industry of professionalized union busters who make very large amounts of money convincing workers not to organize. They've made a science of dividing, intimidating and scaring workers of all types into voting against unionization. When we organized, our management spent several million on one of the most notorious companies in the business. I could go on much to long about all the dirty stuff they pulled, including non-stop surveilance, fraud, forgery, etc. We won anyway, but a lot of times they do beat organizing efforts.

3. Since the nurses assns. left a vacuum, a lot of non-nursing unions have moved in to fill that gap. Unions originally formed for auto-workers, truck drivers, steel workers, janitors, teachers etc all represent a few groups of nurses. Sometimes they do it pretty well - more often not. So a lot of the nurses represented by them aren't happy and aren't good ambassadors for unionization.

4. The state nurses assns. that do collective bargaining are a mixed lot. Some do a great job and provide good representation to their members. Others, not so much. And, like most American unions, too many of them are reluctant to invest in organizing and reluctant to do the hard work that organizing takes. I've helped on a number of campaigns for my union and it is really tough work - so there are unions that spend money on an organizing department, but never succeed in organizing anyone.

In response to one comment above: it is just flat false that unionization makes it impossible to get rid of bad nurses. I am chief steward at my hospital, which means I get involved in almost all the discipline stuff that comes up here. Nurses do get fired regularly when they screw up badly. All a manager has to do if a nurse really needs to go is: let them know how they aren't measuring up and document that they have done so, let them know what they have to do to improve, and document that, then document how they have failed to improve. Just the kind of due process anyone would want. Any manager who says "I can't fire a bad nurse 'because of the union'" is really saying that they are too lazy to do their own job properly. They simply have to go through the sort of steps and the sort of documentation that all of us do every day in the course of our patient care. If they are too lazy to do that - and a lot of managers are - that's not the fault of the union.