re: Trigger Warning: UMC nurses in NO vote to unionize

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If there is a shortage and they need them then the jobseeker should conceivably have the upper hand, right?

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Yeah, except that depending on who you ask, the nursing shortage isn't a true shortage.

Hospitals routinely understaff these days and nurses end up getting the biggest shaft from that practice. Someone mentioned nurses making $90k+ earlier and he may be right, but I don't think pay is the biggest gripe—not from most locales, anyway (nursing compensation varies widely depending upon where we're talking about).

It's not the big gripe I hear from nurses, anyway. The big gripe I hear is that they need 20 nurses on a floor to do everything they are required to do, but the hospital only keeps 15 on staff.

So there are actually plenty of nurses available to do the jobs, but the hospitals don't hire enough and more and more nurses are getting fed up with being overworked and part of a team that is understaffed.

Notice that not once have I said on this thread that I don't think nurses have any legitimate gripes. They probably do.

But I think the practical reality of the situation prevents unions from being a true answer, and I think (know) that no matter how much the CEO of the hospital makes, it has no impact on nurses' salaries, etc.