Stanford and Lucile Packard nurses reject final offer

Stanford and Lucile Packard nurses reject final offer

sfgate.com

Nurses at Stanford Hospital and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital have overwhelmingly rejected a final contract offer, their union announced Wednesday evening.

The union, the independent Committee for Recognition of Nursing Achievement, called on the hospitals to resume bargaining on Friday and involve a federal mediator in an attempt to reach an agreement by the contract's March 31 expiration.

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The membership voted 87% to reject the final offer of the hospital and we ssem to on a collision cource for a strike. The package as proposed would have placed us at the rear in terms of pay and compensation.

Despite the hospitals last minute campaign to pitch the contract to the members of the union directly and bypass the negotiation team (of which I am a member) the nurses simply said "NO" in a huge way.

sfgate.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

What will happen to the patients if the nurses strike?

Will lives be threatened?

Originally posted by djohnsto77
What will happen to the patients if the nurses strike?

Will lives be threatened?

The hospital will bring in scabs which they claim are highly qualified (basicaly an active RN licens and a heart beat)

You can see them at www.strikenurseusa.com

They are offering the scabs 4900.00 a week (7 12 hour shifts in a row) plus hotel and travel expenses

The hospital has issued a press release that they will return to the table on the 28, but thats no guarrantee that they will negotiate.

I've been one of those scabs. Pays great. Of course, if the hospital paid their own people what they pay us, there probably wouldn't be a strike. I quit "strike nursing" when one of my nurse friends went to Jersey during a strike there. She sent me an article entitled: Strike nurse indicted for murder. She was the strike nurse that had been indicted. Seems a "helpful" nurse from the previous shift had mixed up a lidocaine drip since the one that was hanging was about dry, my friend hung it and the patient died. Turns out the "helpful" nurse was a staff nurse that was sympathetic to the strike and wanted to be rid of scabs forever so she deliberately added way too much lidocaine to the bag knowing that it would kill the patient and the scab would be blamed for it. My friend barely escaped with her liberty. Not to mention her RN license and beating heart.
Nursing is an abusive profession. We are treated like disposable commodities; used up, burned out, then discarded for the next batch of bright-eyed graduate nurses. Helps if we don't rip and tear each other up.
Here in Oklahoma we have unions of all sorts but it wasn't until the nursing profession banded together to form a nurses union that the state suddenly went "right to work" and squelched that. Coincidental timing? I smell a conspiracy. All the other unions still exist here but nurses aren't allowed to unionize. During the period of strike nursing, I was also doing travel nursing and since Oklahoma City is such a spread out area, you can live on one side of OKC, work on the other and be considered a travel nurse. The IRS defines "travel" as having to go 50+ miles one way to work. Shortly after "right to work" was enacted (translate: shoved down our throats), the hospitals banded together and made it "policy" to only allow travel/per diem pay to anyone who has to travel more than 100 miles one way to work. The IRS still says I qualify but the hospitals won't pay it now. Looking into another profession. This one sucks! There are days it doesn't matter what they pay...it ain't worth it!

I hear you.

Last strike one of the scabs was found dead in her hotel room. Died of natural causes. the hospital said the 20+16 hour shifts in a row had nothing ot do with it :shk:


Our union is set up a bit different. We are independant. All of our officers have to work as nurses in the facility. I am part of the elected team that meets with the hospital and when i agree to something it effects me as well as everybody else. Actually it impact me 2X as my wife is also part of the union.

The scab must've had an amazingly strong constitution to be able to last even the 20 16-hour shifts. When I was younger and stupider and more gun-ho in nursing, I used to work 2 of the 16hour shifts a week. Took the rest of the week to recover. I thought it'd be great to only work 2 days a week until I realized I was spending the "free" 5 off days laying on the couch dreading my next shift, too beat to get up and try having a life.

With the median age increasing, more AIDS, hepatitis (and other chronic, debilitating diseases) on the rise, the critical nursing shortage, the failing insurance companies, etc., etc., the bioethicists will no doubt conclude that it can all be rectified by one stroke of the pen: Let the people die. It's coming, brother. It's already started. If you get brought into the E.D. with a glasgow of "3", do you get admitted? or pronounced "dead on arrival"?

At one of the hospitals where I worked, a riot nearly broke out during a meeting between nurses and administration. The nurses were venting their frustration at being expected to do the work of 3 people, not getting hazardous duty or combat pay and all the other things that nurses complain about when one of the administrators opened her big mouth. She said, "how hard could it be? given enough bananas, i could train a monkey to do your jobs." !!!!! She had to be quickly escorted out of the auditorium under security protection. Good thing we weren't outside or the rock-chucking would've altered her perception on that topic.

In a society where the priorities are skewed enough to justify a million dollar a year salary to some sweaty guy bouncing a ball on court, it's understandable that life-saving nurses can't get a quarter an hour raise. For me, it's not even so much about the money. It's the total lack of respect. I've seen doctors yank telephones out of the wall and throw them across the nurses station at the nurses, I've seen doctors slap nurses across the face, yell at them like idiots, call them idiots, reduce them tears in front of their co-workers. And that's just the doctors. The patients are getting unbearable too. Act like they're at the Hilton Inn on vacation. I'm especially irked when they think they know more about nursing than I do because they've watched every episode of Scrubs. Don't even get me started on the patient's family members and visitors. ARRRGGGHHHH!!!!

Word to all you people who may be visiting a loved one or friend in the hospital: please bring your own blankets, pillows, towels, washcloths, thermos of coffee, aspirin, phone, snacks. Above all, remember that the nurse realllllllllllyyyyy doesn't care about the health history of your aunt's neighbor's cousin twice removed.

Thanks for letting me vent and I wish you luck on your negotiations FredT.