Nurses gather Wednesday for historic contract vote (largest nursing strike in U.S. history)

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Workday Minnesota

ST. PAUL - More than 12,000 Twin Cities nurses will gather inside the St. Paul RiverCentre Wednesday to cast what could become a historic vote.

Nurses will either approve the pension and contract proposals made by six different Twin Cities Hospital systems representing 13 different hospitals or vote to authorize the largest nursing strike in U.S. history.

Nurses will be able to vote all day long, beginning at 6:00 a.m. until the polls close at 10 p.m. Voting results will be made available and announced shortly after 10 p.m.

Snip: At the forefront of 2010 talks are two issues – RN staffing levels and the nurses’ pension fund, which has been in place since 1962.

Read more: http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4479

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For more information
Get bargaining updates and more at the MNA website: http://www.mnnurses.org/


This related story:

Hospitals should have done some info scans on spokeswoman

Talk about a Code Blue.

That's hospital-speak for when a patient goes down and is in need of resuscitation. I'd say that fits the situation that unfolded Thursday in the labor battle between health care institutions and the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA).

For the past few weeks, 14 Twin Cities hospitals have pleaded poverty to rebut the MNA's charges that hospitals are dangerously understaffed. The coalition has preached fiscal responsibility when addressing planned pension cuts for nurses. Its representatives have looked negotiators for the MNA, and the public, in the eye and said: "Trust us."

In fact, the spokeswoman for the hospital coalition, Trish Dougherty, was quoted thusly: "If you overstaff, you are staffing for patients that aren't there. Is that a responsible way to spend the hospitals' money?"

Trust us, indeed.

It turns out that the woman whom the hospitals hired to be their human face on television, a licensed RN from South Dakota, knows more about hospital spending than anyone could imagine. Nurse Amy VanderLeest used Google and social networking sites to discover what hospital administrators apparently hadn't: Dougherty had been convicted of embezzling $15,000 from Avera McKennan Hospital in Sioux Falls, S.D., where she was director of human resources in 2002. And how did she spend that hospital money? On landscaping for her Sioux Falls home.

This full story here: http://www.startribune.com/local/93730014.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O%20%3Cimg%20src=

[mucifer]

1. Thanks for the info Steve. I was once a nurse working in Oakland California where we were

unionized. It was great full time benefits for working 24 hours a week, 3 eight hour shifts. I'm not sure the California Nurses Association can still pull that off. Now I'm in Chicago working for a small non profit hospice. They are a good organization. But, the union did spoil me. :)

[IndianaJoe]

2. Good for them!

Nurses are among the most overworked and underpaid persons in our society. Hospital administrators faced with budget constraints have a knack for cutting back on nursing staff and then overworking the remainder. I'm glad to hear they're fighting back.

[kimmylavin]

3. They should give them what they want.

And if they won't, the nurses SHOULD strike.
Never have I seen such a group of overworked, underpaid people who STILL do their jobs well (except, perhaps, for teachers).

When I was in the hospital, the nurses were my saving grace, LITERALLY protecting me from some of the doctors who, though they may be good with their hands, have little to no bedside manner.
The women and men who took care of me were absolutely amazing, and I know they were working long, long shifts.

As for Trish Dougherty, I actually think she's a PERFECT "human face" for the hospitals...

[pleah]

4. K&R!

http://www.asherheimermann.org