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

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With the type of people in the NO workforce, the last thing I'd want is to be in a unionized hospital for care. Worthless garbage entitled people being more entitled is going to kill people and the hospital is going to be blamed not the union or the unionized worker. If a worker wants to be unionized them and the union she be held responsible for the workers mistake(s).

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Right now there is nobody protecting patients from the greed of corporate hospitals who force unsafe staffing ratios. Nurses are concerned about much more than salary. We are concerned about the unsafe conditions for patients and staff. Most hospital mistakes that are making healthcare more dangerous are because of cost cuts that force unsafe conditions.

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Also the decisions being made by non-clinicians that affect patient care.

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Give me an example of this that doesn’t involve patient load.

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Give me an example of this that doesn’t involve patient load.

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Just a few of the many:
1. Not transferring a well insured patient to another facility for specialized care when certain vital equipment was not available.
2. Discharging patients who are not well enough because insurance companies were pressuring them.
3. In an inpatient setting that insurance pays by covered days, pressuring providers NOT to discharge the patient when they still have covered days.
4. Keeping patients in “observation” for days instead of admitted status to avoid Medicare penalties for readmissions within a certain time frame.

The former CEO at a hospital in which I worked threatened staff that anyone who worked at a surgery center that was opening down the street would never be eligible for rehire. He later filed a lawsuit against another surgical center that a group of doctors were opening, which caused a lengthy delay in the opening.

“I can’t imagine being dumb enough to go into a career then start crying for them to change the system.”

I guess you might consider me to be one of those dummies.Actually,I was naive and ignorant of the realities of “healthcare” and hospitals.I was the first nurse ever in my family and I didn’t really know any nurses except on a casual basis.
I went into as an idealistic rube that thought hospitals are noble places,Drs were all Marcus Welby and nurses were all Florence Nightingales.

The reality is that some hospital administrators are humanitarians that want the best for the patients,others are money grubbing charlatans that care for nothing except their bonuses and looking good by maximizing profits to look good for their corporate overlords.When bad things happen because of understaffing,lack of equipment,etc.they are masters at shifting the blame to the middle managers and giving them the boot.
A sure sign of a crappy administration is a middle management “reorganization”that typically occurs every couple of years.Some get fired and others are shifted to other departments.A smooth talking administrator can hold on to their jobs for a good many years by making it look like they are addressing the problems.Soon or later,corporate catches on when the lawsuits start piling up,Dr’s complaints become
overwhelming,employee expenses become too great because of excessive turnover.
Then they get canned but it is always presented as they resigned for some believable reason.Corporate doesn’t want anyone to know they had an incompetent administrator running one of their hospitals,They probably don’t even want to admit it to themselves.

All these hospital “experts” posting here allege that unionization will cause a lessening of quality of the nursing staff.I worked 31
years full time ICU-CCU and 2 years part time.My experience was that the quality of the nursing staff varied greatly.It ranged from 99 percentiles nurses to abject incompetents and those with a terminal case of laziness.Short staffing and failure to address substandard nurses leads to high turn over which leads to hospitals hiring anyone with a license and that can fog a mirror. It took something really serious for a nurse to be fired,almost never happened.
So in reality,I doubt there will be much change in the quality of nursing staff.

Only thing that might change is nurse patient ratios.I was never for unionization of nurses but hospitals have no one to blame but themselves if it occurs.

I don’t regret my career choice but my last years were miserable.My shoulders were
wrecked from the large percentage of morbidly obese pts.we recieved.I couldn’t sleep in a bed my last 2 years and for close to a year after I quit.Several of my co-workers had rotator cuff surgeries,others wrecked their backs and left for that reason.
Lunch breaks became few and far between,maybe 1 out of 10 shifts due the workload. The hospital began requiring us to do our own EKG’s,draw our own blood samples and blood cultures.Ward secretaries were eleminated so there was no one to answer the phone.Number of diabetics increased greatly so blood sugar checks were a frequent occurrence.
My final straw was when computer charting was implemented.Just like administrators with no medical knowledge telling nurses how to do their jobs,computer programs were designed by programmers with little to no input from nurses,that was obvious.

I enjoyed the posts by Nynna 11,she (or he) has been there.

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It’s like y’all are hoping this happens.

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The VA is a good example. Ever read any glowing reviews from veterans and their care at a VA center?

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gives her an aspirin

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Is this from 1953?

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The laughable part of this thread

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The disappointing part of this thread is the lock-in to preconception without any attempt to understand nuance.

Once again, since Covid, poorly trained locum RNs are being imported to facilities. CEOs/Administration are monetarily incentivized to be dismissive of and callous to resultant diminution of nursing quality. Union contracts may (should) put an end to that BS, and return facilities to a more traditional safer clinical model.

It's unfortunate unions are necessary. They are inefficient, and will eventually add expense. But our current system leaves no other choice. Hopefully, other facilities will recognize the union threat, and take corrective measures on their own. Unfortunately, that die has been cast in many instances though.

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unions, you will get promotions based on tenure not merit.

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Correct. And your coworkers will hate you for being above average.

Unions are an Uber toxic mob of reactionary simpletons. It creates mass psychosis.

Your coworkers will hate you and make your life miserable if you go above minimum output

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disappointing part of this thread is the lock-in to preconception without any attempt to understand nuance

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I get nuance. But I also get you'll screw yourself having to manage union personnel.

You don't want this.