Chetzemoka
I was being hyperbolic; I thought that would be obvious.
not nearly as easily or quickly as they can move staffing agencies in the current climate
You and I must work in very different current climates.
You didn't personally experience that anecdote (and it's also just an anecdote). Show me a NURSING union that protects people who are dangers to that level. We don't because it's not our professional culture, so it's not how we run our unions. The president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association is still a practicing nurse. She has no personal or professional interest in protecting nurses who are genuinely dangerous.
I also have 20 years experience in management prior to becoming a nurse, including quality, safety and accident investigation experience. One accident doesn't prove that an employee is bad, no matter how much damage it cost. Systemic errors exist. Was that guy being impatient because management was on his ass to do more and more with less and less support? Holding him to an impossible schedule like they do the rail workers? How was he able to have his truck in a situation like that in the first place? Did he bypass safety signalling/communication, or did the signaling/communication policies not exist in the first place? If that driver was genuinely a dangerous employee and had no prior disciplinary action, then that's a management failure to document concerning actions in the past. None of that has anything to do with the union and the union was right to stick to the letter of the contract.
And policing needs to be reformed top to bottom. Union protection alone is not sufficient to create the culture of abusive power that exists in modern policing. That requires the full complicity of our legislative and judicial branches. (See: "tough on crime" politicians and SCOTUS shielding cops from accountability and responsibility.)
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.
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.
As a nurse, "pension"
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Yeah, we don't get those, bud. From the corporations or the unions.