union

[LD]

Re: union

you could always send a PM and ask yourself???

its a message board
i posted a message
does it really bother you that bad?
I will search all your old posts and bump everyone of them just to piss you off

what the heck. i'm gone for a few days.

yes the union won the vote. but now it has to go threw alotttt of stuff. our lawers are working on it. but the union might not get in after all. but we won't know for a while.

how do you feel about it?
you want it to go through or no?

just curious

That's not a bad thing Kristen, I'm a Nurse and used to work in a union facility.

I came in just before a strike, still on my probation so I wasn't subject to the strike. They walked out, and the facility staffed with agency and new hires they promised jobs to. Strike ended, and the facility refused to return all of the Nurses to full time status. The facility wasn't really allowed to do it, but did it anyways, and left them hanging without full time pay for two years. Most quit.(They did it to the aids too, but they were hard to com **snip**

No, Unions may work in other fields, but they absolutely do not work in the medical field.

wow that's intense
I'm sorry it didnt work out for you

I hate unions!...they impede my progress, just there to slow you down...They have yet to do something for me, and no, we cannot get rid of any of the lazy workers...its almost a sin.

mogobs responded to you well

but I will add, your blanket statements made from your very limited experience make you sound totally ignorant

[Gatt9]

Re: union

wow that's intense
I'm sorry it didnt work out for you

Well, the problem is...

It's the medical field. It's a 24/7 operation run by large cooporations, it's not like contracting where we could go sign a book and have someone pick us up the next day, because there's no small buisness in the field.

It's also worse because it's *really* easy to get blacklisted in the field. Such as my area, a little over a dozen hospitals owned by 2 companies. Screw up, there goes half the job market. Screw up again, you're done. There's maybe 2-3 dozen Nursing Homes, which shift staff around between them. So you've got HR departments who are on first name basis's with each other and Administration who probably know you or has a friend that does.

So it's a tight job market, with little recourse when you screw up.

Now, since it's a 24/7 field, and it's people you're working on, it's *really* hard to organize any effective strike. Do it wrong, public opinion goes wildly against you, 'cause everyone screams you abandoned your patients which is a terrifying thought. Do it right, most of the public opinon is against you. It's a no win situation.

Then, alot of the field is single mothers with only a single line of income(You've got two groups, Single Mothers, and Married women whose husband makes most of the loot). So the better part of your coworkers will stand beside you, right until it's time to take an action that would force the companies hand, then they back out. Understandably, they need the money, but a Union's only as strong as it's ability to threaten work stoppage.

If you manage to overcome both of those things, work still doesn't stop. It's not like any other field where you can cripple the companies income, you just stand around being annoying for awhile. Work continues, profit remains unchanged, you're just a squishy speed bump on the way into the parking lot.

So in the end, even the very best Union is really powerless because the only real tool in it's arsenal to affect a company is completely ineffective.

On top of that, while Nurses are still in demand, they're in sufficient supply to maintain a reasonable staffing. But CNA's are a different story, Nurse Aides are in short supply because it's pay is comparable to what a bartender or waitress could make, for a whole lot more hassal. So a crappy CNA under the best of circumstances will stick around longer than necessary, a crappy CNA behind a Union is near impossible to get rid of.

It's also important to remember, a crappy employee in any other field just pisses off his coworkers and maybe slows people down. A crappy employee in the medical field can harm or kill another person. So while it's a major annoyance in another field, it's downright obscene in the medical field.

Catch 22, you can either risk the blacklist without a union, or be protected from it but be stuck watching neglect and abuse.

As far as pay goes, it all depends on your location. Mine is fairly flooded with staff compared to others because we have roughly 16 hospitals in a mid-size city all of which have some Nursing program, and an easy dozen colleges with Nursing programs. Someone above stated RN's in their area get $40/hour, in mine it goes around $20-25. But right now, wherever you go, demand is high enough that the pay is well above average even without union intervention, and the facilities with union intervention get perhaps $1/hour than non. Scarcity isn't the biggest issue in the field, it's retention. Again, it's a female-dominated field, and an easy large margin of the field isn't the breadwinner, but rather just extra money. So someone ticks them off and they just walk. Point being, there's other issues which result in reasonably similiar payrates with or without the Union.

In closing, the next biggest problem is that the goals of the people working in the field are not the same as others. People in this field aren't motivated by any kind of drive for upward mobility, there's very little in the way of upward mobility. Many of them are doing it as a side-job since a Husband is making the money, so there's no major drive to increase income like other fields. "This is enough, my Husband makes 70k a year, we don't need this. So I'm not standing out there on a corner with a sign.". So the few people you did have that financially could've handled striking don't care because it's not a primary source of income. They're there because it's a social field, no deadlines, no major education requirements, it's just something to do.

In short, a Union in the medical field is a farce. They've no "Ultimate weapon", the field itself will kill you, and the majority of the people in it aren't going to stand up and be counted when the cards are on the table because their motivations are different from other fields.

Interesting facts. The medical field is now more tightly regulated by the than the Nuclear Industry, it is routine to force a Nurse or Nurse Aid to work 16 hours if someone calls off, it is permissable to force a Nurse or Nurse Aid to work >16 hours due to weather(So the next time there's 12 inches of snow on the ground remember that somewhere out there a facility could easily have staff that's been working for >16 hours or >24 hours straight), PA surveys the Nurses every other year on job satisfaction and the majority are very dissatisfied(It's the only state that does it).

Edit: Too damn long, took out redundancy.

[josh98bird]

Re: union

Tell us how you really feel :D

[Gatt9]

Re: union

Tell us how you really feel :D

In two semesters I'm a Computer Scientist, should about sum it all up :)

[kristen]

Re: union

i know that there can be high and low points to the union. i don't want to cast too much judgment untill everything is set up.

but in my building, there is alottttttttttt of lazy mother F'ing cna's, who don't want to do sh!t. and they don't do sh!t. and that is about 90% of the cna staff. those are the front runners who want the union in here. i could go on,but i'm just getting pissed off.

[kala]

Re: union

I was so pissed off at this nurse last night, I was gonna call the Nursing Supervisor and complain. But then I looked at some bewbies and calmed down. No complain filed!





:)

[LETZRIDE]

Re: union

mogobs responded to you well

but I will add, your blanket statements made from your very limited experience make you sound totally ignorant

Sorry if it comes off that way, it is my opinion based on the union I work for, and other unions my parents work for...like stated there are different unions out there, and no I cannot say anything about any of them other then the few I know... but my "limited" experience has me not liking them at all....to each his own I suppose...I stand by my statement.

[Mogobs30th]

Re: union

Sorry if it comes off that way, it is my opinion based on the union I work for, and other unions my parents work for...like stated there are different unions out there, and no I cannot say anything about any of them other then the few I know... but my "limited" experience has me not liking them at all....to each his own I suppose...I stand by my statement.

What union do you work for?

[LETZRIDE]

Re: union

CAW (canadian auto workers union)...its a really strong union...I just personally think the bad out ways the good in my experiences anyways... In my company (and I have to be careful what I say on here cause you never know who reads this) it just seems that they dont do anything for me...We have SOOOO many lazy people that want to do nothing it bugs the hell out of me...management goes to discipline them or fire them, and they go running to the union and management gets slapped on the wrist and they get off the hook EVERYTIME...now Im not in management, Im worker...I work fulltime at a factory, and am going to university part time until I can get in full time for the program I want...when I work, I work to work...I dont go to mess around, I take **** seriously. I care about what I do, I hate the job, but I care...what ever I do, I try my best to do it right, and try to give it my all...to me its my reputation on the line.
Now the union hasnt done anything for me because I havent needed them to ever do anything for me...but what they have done which makes me not like them is made tons of lazy workers keep there job,,,,and integrated a system of senority rather then by qualification. I understand that if someone has been there for a long time, they should be entitled to something...but I cant even express in words how many people are doing jobs they are unqualified for (not legally unqualified but just literally unqualified). Like there are people there that are 100 times more qualified to do the job, but cant have it because of senority.
I can't believe how backwards the union has it in the workplace, however on a side note...Unions are extremely good from a health and safety point of view, and that has to be about one of the only reasons that I kinda like them, other then that like I said...I hate them.