Chetzemoka

they can just choose to go to a different staffing agency

That's just free market labor. Shit hospital nurses are free to bounce from facility to facility as well. Welcome to America.

A union gives me more power to enact change inside my own corporation-owned facility. Staffing negotiations give me leverage to force staffing levels that keep my patients both safe and receiving the care that they need.

I had a woman sitting in her own feces for over an hour on Sunday because our hospital chooses not to staff the central stock room on weekends and holidays, and we were completely out of the only size briefs that would fit her. I checked the next unit over and they were out too. This is a standard item that should be stocked at all times. I had to ask one of our transporters hunt them down for us.

Part of our union contract will be to demand that our local unit supply rooms are stocked no less than once per day 365 days a year. It's INSANE that an American hospital chooses to operate without that.

"The union" doesn't do anything. WE are the union. I AM the union. I'm planning to be one of the people sitting right there at the negotiation table working on our contract. WE will be the ones negotiating how disciplinary grievances are handled and the union only exists to provide us with legal representation to ensure that OUR chosen contract terms are adhered to.

Why do American nurses in particular believe such heinous lies and propaganda about how unions work? You overheard some hearsay from someone about a union that doesn't even represent nurses and you just swallowed that hook, line, and sinker?

Trust me, I started out my career working for a private equity owned SNF/LTC. Those places are horrifically terrible and should be outlawed.

And your particular issue with this individual nurse isn't really because they're agency. We have that kind of problem with full time regular nurses in our hospital being unprofessional children. But also our hospital corporation likes to play on our compassion to exploit us when in reality, that grandmother sitting in her feces is their fault for refusing to staff our fucking hospital properly.

Bullshit

I'm born and raised in Appalachia, my daddy worked in the coal mines and drove an 18 wheeler. Certified redneck enough that I confuse the shit out of my New England neighbors.

I went out and marched with striking nurses when Bernie put out the call, and I've never voted Republican in my entire fucking life.

OP, you need to learn what a redneck is.

We've gotten so much better at airplane evacuations over the years. The HEAVILY REGULATED airline industry is a masterclass in actually learning from tragedy.

Edit: Christ Almighty, I'll split the hair, you guys.

Doctors don't work FOR WAGES meaning they are not hourly wage employees. Their pay structure is completely different, which means their LABOR MODEL is completely different. Of course they work for money.

You literally have no idea what you're talking about. Doctors don't work for wages. Their labor model is completely different from nurses.

Gamma irradiated. And we definitely don't track how many saline flushes we use. That would be such a futile chore, Sisyphus would pity you.

Jesus, I won't even let a patient drink tap water in a hospital. Drinking water only from the filtered dispenser in the kitchen or bottled.

Your hypothetical does not accurately reflect anything about how the healthcare system works.

No transplant surgeon is getting a surprise shift. This is exactly why on-call shifts exist. There is already someone available who knows they need to be ready to go at a moment's notice.

And nurses don't function the same as doctors. We are regular wage employees, just like anyone working retail. We absolutely do not have to be available whenever and wherever. They can (and do, constantly) ask us to pick up shifts. But we're not obligated to come in on our scheduled days off.

Healthcare corporations need to get their fucking staffing models together.

"I'll fight through the gates of hell and back for my nurses"*

*Except to advocate that our cheap ass private equity owned facility hire actual full time staff with benefits instead of outsourcing to a temp agency.

Those agency nurses aren't your enemy. They aren't the reason you end up taking an assignment. That's the fault of the corporation that owns you. And in all sincerity, good for those agency nurses demanding the working conditions that they want and refusing to accept whatever the facility wants to push on them.

Sincerely, a hospital nurse having our union election on Jan 10

(And I have stories too, you know. Like my supervisor who tonight simply lied to the overnight sup about our staffing situation and tried to leave two nurses alone to care for NINE patients on our critical care stepdown unit overnight.)

The nursing shortage is at least partially artificial. There is a shortage of nurses who are willing to work in abusive conditions that exploit our legal, moral, and professional obligations to our patients to make their profit. Fight these corporations for safe working conditions and watch how many nurses return to the bedside.

Yes. The nursing profession doesn't fuck around with this kind of shit.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/03/25/1088902487/former-nurse-found-guilty-in-accidental-injection-death-of-75-year-old-patient