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Tuesday, June 14, 2016

hospitals nationwide try to take down nurse unions

Hospitals are on a nationwide effort to take down nurses unions, figuring they will do it before the next shortage.  Nurses in unions have won good benefits in many states when negotiating contracts in the past.  We took advantage of our power. 

With the economic downturn has come an effort to take back the health insurance and pensions that that nurses made many sacrifices to obtain.  Hospitals say no one gets good insurance any more.  They say pensions are outdated.  They pit groups of workers in hospitals against each other.

Nurses sacrificed a lot to get to decent benefits for ourselves. We went on strike.  We sacrificed wages for benefits.

We still have the power we have always had.  We are the ones who take care of the casualties from something like the Orlando bombing.  When they stream into the emergency room, it is the nurses who receive them and take care of them.  It is an upside down world when the people who have the skills to care for complex patients have to fight for their benefits while the paper pushers get exorbitant salaries and bonuses.  It is the nurse who helps the doctor save lives not the administrator.

The question is: Will nurses take the power they have, as the backbone of the medical field without which it cannot function, or will we back down?  Its up to us. The future of nursing is at stake.

3 comments:

Nicole said...

I agree, nurses worked hard to get to where they are at. I have always respected my employers, and until recently have never been part of a union. I am used to just being told we will work short, we will have our sick pay cut, we will not get health insurance, we will work 12 hour shifts, and the list could go on. I have always just done what is asked of me or told to me. Now that I work somewhere that has a union, I feel like I have more of a voice. It is also uplifting that coworkers and other nurses are fighting for the same rights. Great blog!

Anonymous said...

what would happen if all the nurse`s in this country joined the same union ??? then maybe we would have a voice in washinhton DC !!!!

ERMurse said...

I believe in Unions for Nursing. That being said you have to keep and eye on your Union and hold their feet to the fire and remind them occasionally they work for you (The Nurses) not the Nurses work for them to further their political goals. I wrote about the Union I am a member of recently because they are loosing sight of this.
http://ermurse.blogspot.com/2016/10/why-is-california-nurses-association.html