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A one-day nurses' strike isn't as strange an idea as it sounds
by Hy BermanSpokespeople for the Minnesota Nurses Association have stated that if a strike is authorized by today's vote it will last a single day. Many observers may find that announcement confusing. Strikes are almost always fought to the bitter end, with one side or the other capitulating or compromising.
Past strikes against Twin Cities hospitals were long, drawn-out, bitter battles. Both the 1984 and the 2001 strikes were long conflicts that ended in concessions to the nurses regarding staffing and work-rule improvements, but with the nurses giving in on security issues.
The issues in contention today are work rules and pensions. Economic issues do not loom as large today as they did in the past.
The nurses' strategy of mounting an effective one-day strike of all the hospitals engaged in contract negotiations makes much sense. First and foremost, it shows the determination of the nurses to make a dramatic demonstration of unity and solidarity. At the same time, it reinforces their contention that they are striking in the interests of their patients by going out for only one day.
Secondly, the nurses are putting the hospital administrators in a difficult position. To avoid dangerous disruptions of patient care they must provide replacement staff for that day or use supervisory staff as nurses. Either option, even for a day, is difficult.
Replacement nurses, known as travelers or scabs, are hired at high cost on a weekly rate, even though they work for only one day. Supervisory staff is far too few and mainly too untrained to serve patients adequately for even one day.
A one-day strike would also highlight the main contention of the nurses -- that the work-rule changes are necessary to guarantee high quality patient care and that their strike is really for the benefit of the patients.
Even the changes proposed by the hospitals in the nurses' pension plan would negatively affect patients, by drying up the attractiveness of nursing as a profession and keeping good people from becoming nurses.
This threat of a one-day strike, MNA strategists believe, thus puts the burden for reaching a contract agreement upon the hospitals. They further hope that the public will hear and support their assertion that they are seeking, through their contract demands, to improve patient care.
Although it seems like a winning strategy, the times are volatile, and the strategy might very well fail. At the very least it would call attention to the issues that the nurses are raising.
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Hy Berman, of Minneapolis, is a retired University of Minnesota history professor who has specialized in the labor movement.
Comments (13)
Minnesota Public Radio? More like Minnesota Socialist Radio. They do it because they know full well that the hospitals are hiring replacements to work 4 day intervals. If the MNA nurses were to come back to work after only one day, it costs the hospitals millions more to pay the contract workers off. Organized labor is about inflicting as much harm and damage as possible in order to obtain your goal. This is not the 1920's. Unions are about as useful to modern society as the edison crank phonograph.
Poor Lloyd... He says "Unions are about as useful to modern society as the edison crank phonograph" while he reminisces about the good old days of slavery and fascism...
You forget Lloyd - the hospitals started this, not the nurses.
What are the SPECIFIC issues? I'm a guy who is waiting for a return of a 45% cut in pay from my employer fourteen months ago. Right now I lack any sympathy for either side. What are you being asked to give up?
It's really about what YOU as hospital consumers are giving up! We are doing this for YOUR safety! Do you REALLY want a nurse to take care of you who has so many other patients to care for that he or she has no time for you? What the hospitals are asking for is "flexibility". The ability to change how we take care of you, where we take care of you and when we take care of you. The hospitals are proposing the ability to change our schedules within 4 hours of our start time. They can make us stay home, they can make us come in 4 hours after a shift starts. They can also tell us we have to be on-call, in house and then pay us 11.00 per hour while they decide what to do with us. I have small children, I have daycare and I cannot get a sitter on a moments notice. I also have a husband who works the opposite shift I do, creating an even more difficult child care situation. However, in the end, for me at least, this is about patient safety. I cannot physically take care of 5 or 6 patients. If you have no idea what a nurse does, ask one. You might have a different outlook. Please support your nurses, you never know when you might need one!
The hospitals are also asking that they don't contribute to the pension plans for the nurses anymore. They are now contributing a percentage. They want to stop contributing all together from their pensions. You say that the nurses just want a buy out... How can you say that when it will cost the hospitals so much more to pay these travel nurses in upwards me 5000 dollars per week just for wages. This will make the hospitals bankrupt all together. You wanna see how much care these travel nurses will give.... Walk in during the one day strike and ask one of them how many patients they are baring for in that one day... Which they'll be asked to work 12 shifts. Each travel nurse will have 10 to 12 patients that they're asked to care for.... Now how long before they get burnt out from baring for those patients before their level of care is put in jeopardy because these travel ourdrs are so tired.... Know the facts before you start blaming the nurses for being selfish and greedy. My mother, wife and mother in law are all nurses... So i hear and know everything before you poorly educated people in the general population know whats going on.... Try asking a nurse for the facts... Rather then getting then from the news channels.
I support the nurse's but asking for a 4% raise each year for the nest 3 years is not about patient care. People are being laid off and they want 4%. Seems ridiculous to me.
Joe Blow, you are buying into the hospital's rhetoric. Of course we care about our wages and pensions but most nurses I talk with would be happy to keep things the same. The biggest problem is the staffing the hospitals want to implement, falsely believing that it will save money when in reality it will cause more overtime for staff and lawsuits when patients have falls or medication errors. We want the best care for our patients and we want to protect our RN licenses. Trust me, if you were a patient in a Twin Cities hospital you would want the same.
It would seem that a one day strike is harmful to the strikers and the hospitals and "beneficial" to the union budget---when looking at hospital ability to call off staff per previous comments you say they can do--one would think the Hospitals would just call off all staff for the rest of the week and let the replacement nurses work until the week paid for is up and go back home, force MN nurses to use time off pay if available or hospital would lay off salary staff for the remainder of the week, not long enough to draw unemployment,--then MN nurses would have to go back to work in a week without a contract, used up time off and all this without the union having to pay any substantial benefits PLUS without any progress on the situation---a one day strike in my opinion is futile and will only elevate the tension between sides--the hospital can not reasonably be expected to pay replacement nurses and staff--Not knowing your contracts and state laws limits my input but it would seem highly unlikely that few if any non-salary nurses would be allowed to work as scheduled--the exception being any holes that were unable to be filled with replacement nurse--The downside would be hospital/union would have to weigh the risks (political/real?)of union nurse and replacement nurse working side by side---what a mess your one day strike would be---either strike or not in my opinion--
Nurses want to be known as professionals, yet are now commited to a one strike. Sounds like a very blue collar thing to do. I hope that due to this, nurses never are referred to as healthcare professionals, but only as the grunts they truely are. As a healthcare professional who takes care of children, walking out on them for one day is unsafe and uncalled for! Having worked along side many of these nurses over the last 14 years, I would have told anyone and everyone to always take their children to Children's Hostails and Clinics of Minnesota no matter what. Now, I am ashamed to be associated with these nurses. They state that 'We Care'. I believe they only care about themselves. I pray that their decision does not cause the death of any children. How could they live with themselves if it does?
I have been a registered nurse for over 40 years and the statement from Neal F is really upsetting. None of us want to put our patients at risk yet the hospitals seem to think that a"nurse is a nurse is a nurse". I work in a very specialized surgical unit and I know that a nurse from general surgery would be at a loss to do my job. The same goes for a nurse from a general medical floor asked to care for extremely sick children. I want a qualified nurse to take care of me and my family both for my sake and for the nurses sake. I can't believe Neal doesn't feel the same way. If I had to care for a patient that I didn't feel competent in caring for and something happened because of that I know I would no longer be able to work as a nurse. I would be not ever be able to forgive myself for allowing the hospital to put my patient and myself at risk. This is what we are all faced with if the hospitals get their way.
The hospitals have been planning this for a couple years at least. They have and are using intimidation tactics by firing nurses for various reasons that they would normally never fire them for if there was a shortage on nurses. This has happened frequently at the hospital I work at and they feel if they can intimidate the nurses and create a hostile environment they can make nurses back down. The funny thing is that it did the oppposite, nurses are understandably angry. They have also told us that our patients are limited to a certain amount of food when the kitchen's closed so if you're feeling like a little jello or ice cream, you're out of luck-no lie. These hospitals are making millions and they're worried about these kind of things to make it appear that they are lacking funds. They've been incredibly deceptive - they want to be able to change our insurance at any time, decrease our pension which they can well afford - which would put a burden on society in the future (as if there's not enough) and be able to give us patients when we know we couldn't handle another one at that time and override our better judgment. Good luck to you if you're that patient. We are in a tough job where we get yelled at, occasionally physically assaulted and people are usually at their most emotional. I would like to see an office worker deal with that 40 hours a week-which the hospitals are basing our annual salary on. So what if we get paid a bit more than others, this isn't socialism
Neal.... Shame on you! Who is not acting like a professional now! Wake up, you made need a nurse someday and I hope they are busy with other patients!!
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