Unionized Nurses in Hospitals

[hightower]

My wife was recently in the hospital to deliver our 2nd boy and while I was talking to one of the nurses she mentioned in hospitals where the nurses are unionized they pretty much run the show and have a ton of power. Have any of you worked in such hospitals? If so, does it affect the way physicians practice? My wife is an RN and I know most are very competent health care workers. In fact, her labor and delivery nurse was on top of things and quickly treated my wife with ephedrine after her blood pressure dropped after she received her epidural. Her systolic dropped way down. Anyway, any experience with unionized nurses?

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[Andros84]

Congratulations!

So, I'm assuming this nurse tending to your wife was in a union? I don't have any personal experience with unions, especially in a hospital setting. Though, in my opinion, all unions encourage member loyalty to the union, and don't have much to do with competency. I'm not saying that union nurses are not competent. The problem is, there's no reason for any of them to provide better quality of care as long as they're protected by the union. Also, unions will always be fighting for more pay. It keeps their members happy and loyal. Why not join a union if you know your pay will increase a little bit every so often? Obviously I love unions! 😉 Btw, this is my opinion folks! Of course I'm not a physician or a resident, but I couldn't resist.

 

[347932]

Congrats on the baby!!! Many years of happiness!

I've never worked with unionized nurses, so I can't really speak on that. Wanted to wish you congrats, though😀.

 

[Feli]

Quite a few big hospitals or health systems have unionized nurses, esp in liberal areas, but more and more have been voting to dump the unions in recent years. I was required to be in a nsg union even when I was a nurse asst (transporter and ER asst) during undergrad in Minn.

...Unions have generally outlived their usefulness IMO. Like other unionized professions, nsg unions do give protection for employees against wrongful terminations and the unionized workers usually end up making more (even after forced union dues are sucked out of each paycheck). The downside is that you also end up with pay being based totally on seniority, not performance.

In terms of nursing unions' effect on physicians, I'd think that maybe it'd be harder to get a poorly performing union nurse disciplined/fired. A comment of praise for a well performing nurse also wouldn't do much in terms of pay since that's already dictated by union seniority scale, but maybe you'd get him/her closer to a promotion? Who really knows.

 

[Foot Doc]

geez I hope the cows at U of L never become unionized

 

[PADPM]

geez I hope the cows at U of L never become unionized

Wow, I hope that they never find out your true identity. Hell hath no fury like a woman's scorn😱

 

[dyk343]

I called my sister a cow once... Lets just say it didnt end well for me.

 

[Feli]

geez I hope the cows at U of L never become unionized

Wow, I hope that they never find out your true identity. Hell hath no fury like a woman's scorn😱

Relax, he's probably just talking about the animal specimens in the University's clinical research dept.

 

[Foot Doc]

Wow, I hope that they never find out your true identity. Hell hath no fury like a woman's scorn😱

LOL......not all of the Rn's, but some for sure. It's fine, though, I haven't been too aggressive in obtaining my privileges there because I like to get paid for what I do, lol.

 

[347932]

This thread is seriously going places...

 

[Foot Doc]

This thread is seriously going places...

like a government-insured patient with a bus pass