Nurses only strike as a last resort and not usually for money. The biggest issue is staffing. I have a low opinion of an institution that will paybig bucks for strike nurses instead of using that money to hire more nurses to ease the staffing situation. The strike nurses are helping hospitals keep staffing at a dangerously low level which could impact the patient mortality rate.
In Michigan we have a hospital where the nurses have been on strike for around a year. The administration has employed "scab" nurses to fill that gap. Not only do these nurses get paid well, they are also fed and housed. It would seem the hospitals' concern about nursing costs are pretty much blown out of the water because the amount of monies spent to employ these other "nurses" has to have well surpassed the budgetary issues I'm sure they gave as the reasons they could not/would not grant the requests of their striking nurses.
Several years ago a local hospitals' nurses went on strike for a short peroid of time and the "strike breakers" were bussed in. The horror stories that were related because of nursing personell that not only were not familiar with the facility, they also were often placed in areas that were outside of their expertise were numerous. The hospital at least had the foresight to transfer their sickest and most complicated to other facilities.
I think that ultimately the nurses that allow themselves to be used to coerce fellow nurses into accepting poor employment practices will only serve to help heighten the nursing shortage. With the many choices available to women (and men) these days why "choose" to go into a profession that utilizes "mandatory" overtime, short staffing, week-ends, shift work and all of the rest that goes with traditional hospital nursing and get pimped by their collegues to boot! Just my humble opinion.
Many hospitals have strike insurance so maybe your anger should be directed at the insurance industry. Also, where would the patients go for care. Would they go to a competing hospital and would the nurses working there be "hurting" the striking nurses by taking care of those patients. Please don't offer for admins to take care of patients. At one point when we were short they asked case managers to work the floor .. It was awful ..Worst than being short staffed. They didn't know how to use pyxis, didn't know how to use the pumps etc. We spent more time teaching them than it would have taken us to take care of the patients.. And if they were called in on a strike .. Who would teach them.. That would be a night mare.
Just my two cents..
WR,,,
Having just lived through a 1-day strike, and having walked a picket line for two weeks before while striking I can't say that I am against strikes. and while I may understand and respect my coworkers choices to cross and work..I may not like it, but can still respect their right to make a choice...I CAN say that the people they bus in to work while we are striking are really low...I don't blame the managers they make work the floor...them having to touch a patient is far worse then anything I could do to them..after all...that is the reason most of them manage.. in my opinion...but I digress....I do have problems with nurses that cross my line just to make a few bucks... And while I do think that strikes are about money...after all...we do need to make a decent wage..Most of the time, what tips the scale in favor is a strike is...respect..or the lack thereof by management for a nurses ability to assess the need for...more staffing, more and better equipment, the need for ancillary staff...breaks..(what the hell are those)
and don't need some little pencil pusher to tell me that I can get along just fine with 4 nurses for 30 patients. their "numbers" tell them that is all we need. Tell that to the littlw lady who is laying in her own mess cause I can't get down there to get her to the BR before she goes. You wanted my opinion...ya got it!!!
Laura
You are so right.All those things you talk about are about money though. And respect is about money too. Respect is about being able to be proud of the job you did today and the job you will do tomorrow..Under valuating a nurse is not respectful IMHO.
WR,,, three commas for Becca
I think that something important is being missed. First off I am an LPN awaiting RN boards and DO NOT work administration or strikes. However, if there were no strike nurses, the facilities would be at the absolute mercy of whatever idea d'jour that the staff got together on. While that may seem ideal to the staff that is a very dangerous and unreasonable business practice. If all of the nurses just walk out and no one is there to staff the hospital what would happen ? You get your way without a fight, no negotiations and then its just like you are dealing with a child. The minute they know that they can "hold their breath" and get their way. They will threaten to do so every few weeks to get some other demand met and lets face it, Nurses do make the reputation and care of the hospital but we do not run the financial side and that is probably a good thing. Strikes are a bargaining tool. Period You just need a balance of power and strike nurses mediate that balance. (at a rate of 4700 dollars per week for RN's and 3000 for LPN's)
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on who's for dinner. Liberty is a well armed sheep protesting the vote
"Nurses do make the reputaion and care of the hospital but we do not run the financial side and that is probably a good thing" THAT IS PROBABLY A BAD THING. Cuz I don't think many nurses would give the CEO of a small community hospital in one of the highest (if not the highest %wise) taxed state in the union more than the President of the United States....
Can I ask how long you have been a nurse? And how long you have worked in a hospital and seen the very poor management money wise many exhibit.. Like close a surgical wing, make a fancy kitchen, with two stoves etc, for the mental health unit for a couple of years ..Then gut that and revert to a surgical unit...Or open a beautiful woman's center for ONE year and then convert it to a mobile MRI unit..Yep those decisions were all made without nursing imput...But then again we know nothing of finance.. We just manage to buy houses, feed our kids, put them through college, and save for our retirement on the measley wages some hospitals care to pay us...
OK OK OK OK I am getting down now...
WR,,, three commas for Becca
I don't care what you think of me but don't attack other nurses without the facts.
Right, we're just nurses.. not financially educated. We couldn't possibly be as wise and brilliant as the hospital adminstrator they're paying the big bucks to or else why would we be doing the low end of the totem pole (patient care)?? *LOL* I wonder if the hosp administrator made a 40% return in the stock market buying & selling mortgage reit stocks like I did last year without any stock broker?
Nurses should get more involved in hospital management & administration- not just nursing admin
Sara. You don't really think any of the old boys are gonna let us in do you??? Heck we don't even get a say on what chairs we get to sit in..
Come on girl???
WR,,, three commas for Becca
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