Nurses at the region's largest hospital began a 24-hour strike Friday morning, following nearly a year of on-again, off-again contract talks.
These nurses abandoned their patients to stand outside with goofy signs proclaiming that they're advocating for their patients. Um, yeah. The hospital is having none of it.
Hospital spokeswoman So Young Pak said that of the 313 nurses scheduled to work the 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. shift Friday, more than 150 came in. Replacement nurses were hired to fill in for the rest. The D.C. health department licensed 26 nurses Wednesday and 100 Thursday, a spokeswoman for the agency said, to help ensure that the 926-bed hospital center facility would remain adequately staffed.
"Everything is running smoothly," Pak said."All our services are in place."
The job action is supposed to end at 7 a.m. Saturday. But hospital officials say they will lock out striking nurses for five days - meaning that the nurses will not be paid or allowed back to work until Wednesday - because the hospital is obligated to pay replacement nurses for a minimum of 60 hours of work.
The hospital needs about 600 nurses a day, 300 each for a day and night shift.
I think it's reprehensible for nurses to walk off the job, and I feel the same way about teachers, cops and firefighters. These are supposed to be higher callings, not cash cows. Maybe I'm being too hasty...are the nurses underpaid? You decide...
The hospital says entry level nurses earn about $57,000 a year and experienced nurses earn about $98,000 a year. The union says average pay is about $37 an hour, so a typical 36-hour work week would be about $70,000 a year.
Why in the world would intelligent professional women and men, making a damn decent wage, congregate on the streets and make fools of themselves? Who's stirring up this hell?
On the picket line, the biggest turnout is expected around noon, when AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is scheduled to speak. Clergy and other labor unions are also expected to show their support.
Oh FFS. Trumka has his sticky little fingers everywhere, doesn't he? Trumka and weasels like him are destroying the essence of what makes America great, and corrupting vast groups of professionals with a never-ending money/benefit tree. It's sickening.
Bravo for the nurses who crossed the picket line to take care of their patients, and to the replacement nurses who answered the call for help. All is not lost as long as there are teachers, nurses, cops, and firefighters who remember WHY they chose to dedicate their lives to helping others.
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| Trumka at his best |
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Hear, hear!
ReplyDeleteSomeday in the near future, I will be going back to school to earn an RN. One of the things that bothers me is the thought of having to join a union to do something I've wanted to do since I was a child. Yeah - sorry - I don't think I'd be making any friends if the union decided to do something that might diminish patient care.
Lyana, exactly! I'm currently pursuing my lifelong dream to be an RN, and the thought of having to join a union makes me shudder with horror.
ReplyDeleteWell, maybe you and I can help change things from the inside. ^5 sistah!
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ReplyDeleteTrumka, pffft, I won't say what I'm thinking.
ReplyDeleteThink of a movie-star dog. Think of a relative. Trumka is the male counterpart.
Here's the post again! With correct spelling!
ReplyDeleteWow. I'm tempted to go to the old coal-generated comuputer and post my "goth nurse" pic.
Even with the cuts to shift differentials, Orlowski said, the nurses are among the highest paid in the metropolitan area. In 2009, the average nurse at the hospital center earned about $93,000, she said.
Cry me a frickin' river.
That fat fuck Trumka sure looks like he's performed "labor" a lot doesn't he? He "worked in the coal mines" from 1968 to maybe 1971 while going to college? (I think even that is BS) From 1974 he's been a union lawyer, and hasn't dirtied a finger with "labor" since. His career has been all mouth (and obviously ass).
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the union movement itself has been corrupted by cake eaters and no longer represents anyone but their leaderships' best interest, politically and financially.
^^^
ReplyDeleteWoohoo! I'm glad you said what I was thinking in my post #4.
Well said, aridog. Standing ovation!
ReplyDeleteThis is why the subject of unions is such a tough discussion. If those nurses are striking only for money then that's one thing. But... except for the last few years, my wife has been a nurse (ER) since I've been with her, thirty two years. And believe you me she's got stories of understaffed, overworked, responsibility without authority, and a myriad compendium of other crap that hospitals dish out that would make your jaw drop and your face turn red in anger at the shit nurses have to take. As true, most go into nursing for reasons other than money... but that is a tough row to hoe at times. Hospitals find it easier to pay higher wages than to deal with the rest of the issues.
ReplyDeleteI hear what you're saying, Luther, but if you follow the links back they will keep going to the series of stories from the WaPo the last year or so about this situation. It doesn't appear that there are really enough documented problems for them to strike. I really believe they are just using their union status to hold the hospital admin. hostage for higher wages in this instance.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt nurses are understaffed in many hospitals. I think one reason is because they do the job of nursing as well as some of the physician's and aide's responsibilities. When I had 2 hospital stays in 2007, I came back with baskets of goodies for the nurses. I loved them, they took such good care of me!! I was a nervous, scared patient!! Even Nurse Ratched took good care of me, she just didn't have a good bedside manner like the rest of my nurses.
One of their (striking DC nurses) complaints was that the "resource" nurse has patients. Come on!
In this instance, I'm siding with the management.
You make excellent points, Luther. There is no doubt a huge difference of opinion (and disparity of reality) between the hard-working nurses in the trenches and the pencil-pushers. However, I feel that there are better ways for good nurses to address these problems without ABANDONING the patients they are sworn to care for. You know?
ReplyDeleteIf your lovely wife would like to jump into this conversation, I'd be honored to hear her opinion on striking nurses. I'll bet she could offer a unique perspective, and bring up points I haven't even thought of. :)
Plus, it would be very, very cool to meet Mrs. Luther. ;)
ReplyDeleteOnce, while in London, my wife and I visited St. Thomas hospital's museum for Florence Nightingale. There's a woman who went through hell for her beliefs, unique for her time.
ReplyDeleteI don't mean to be antagonistic, nor cynical toward yearning nurses, with my above comment. Just that it is an extremely complicated issue.
I posted the above without looking at current comments.
ReplyDeleteI didn't follow all the links, florrie. So, in the end it is about wages, in D.C.. Though even that demand should be parsed for what is really going on. Nurse's... ANYONE, will always be susceptible to horrible conditions versus higher wages. Nurses are no exception to that rule. Mainly because that is one of the few areas in which they may have some modicum of control.
Hard for me to take a side here. Health care, et al, is such a fucking mess. I would venture a reason, because of government involvement.
I think Luther did make some good points. However, it seems that the option of disclosing the actions of administrators would do a better job of exposing problems.
ReplyDeleteI have spoken on this blog of the "MBAization" of the United States. I have a problem of Bozos who have no idea what a [company] is supposed to do coming in and telling that [company] how to do it. I believe strongly that that is a trend that should be reversed. I can understand that nurses have to fight for their patients. But I cannot understand how abandoning patients for 24 hours helps those patients.
Nor can the effect of rules and regulations of the Federal Government, among other organizations, be ignored.
Mrs. Luther will never write, Lady Red. She's shy.
ReplyDeleteThough... this is an excellent point.
"between the hard-working nurses in the trenches and the pencil-pushers"
I have to laugh though, as you sound like a mudmarine.
Love ya, LR. Happy Birthday, again.
"disclosing the actions of administrators would do a better job of exposing problems."
ReplyDeleteAgree, but the problem is, is that that will never happen. Just like so much other incompetence in the world.
Should I discuss my boss... :)
And now... time zones. Damn things, getting in the way of conversation.
ReplyDeleteI was hoping she'd comment too, it WOULD be cool to meet Mrs. Luther.
ReplyDeleteBut I understand if she's shy...
My comments reflect my current hostility due to the WI situation. I keep telling myself "moderation" but it's just not in my genetic makeup!
'We're all' on edge, and hostile, with WI in our face. Knowing that to be the farce that it is.
ReplyDeleteBut... there are issues out there, extremely complicated issues, that require our best thinking.
I'm no good at that, anymore.
Stupor is the best I can manage.
Like florrie I had nothing but praise for the nurses who looked after me before, during, and after my cancer surgery.
ReplyDeleteExcept one. She insisted, against the surgeons orders, that I raise myself off the bed and on to a stretcher the day after major surgery, to get an xray. Patients in the same condition as me had the portable xray equipment come to them.
When I told the surgeon she was absolutely livid. I think said nurse was fired.
Fay, that's awful! Scary too.
ReplyDeleteRadioMattM said: "I have spoken on this blog of the "MBAization" of the United States"
ReplyDeleteB-I-N-G-O !! x(
They drive the tilt toward "process" over end "product." They are posers who believe efficiency, as defined by speed and cost reduction alone, is paramount rather than actual outcome success or failure. They prefer efficient failure.
In hospitals, this bent can cause large parts of whole departments to develop "Ben Casey Syndrome" with the attitude to match. I have witnessed it first hand, recently. When you are damned if you do and damned if you don't, the result isn't always good. I suspect instances of this phenomena is a part of what Luther is talking about.
Let me explain where my bad attitude began vis a vis cake eating superiors who order that unreality is reality ... in the name of false efficiency. I've mentioned it before I think...
ReplyDeleteLong ago, when I was a obstinate buck sergeant, I had to account for the costs of a project to rebuild main battle tanks on a mountain side ... not in a depot as normal. I did so utilizing my advanced 3rd grade math skills ... you know where 2+2=4, etc.
I got creamed, as did my company and battalion commanders ... the general was livid that my numbers didn't match his estimate, which was so low that you couldn't rebuild a jeep for that price ... but it was "political" as he'd promised DOD and JCS that "he'd get it done for that figure." We were ordered to re-examine our records and report back in 24 hours. The XO bought us a case of beer and we proceeded to rig our figures to match the General's.
A few months later, Vice President Agnew flew in country and presented said general with a medal for efficiency in cost reduction ... based on the bullshit we re-reported as ordered.
See who benefited from the lies?
Fortunately we rebuilt the tanks according to depot level technical manuals, not in-service IROAN spec's, and fudged the cost numbers, not the actual work or the parts used.
Had we actually done the work for the price specified by a man who had no clue, other Soldiers or Marines would have died as a result. And the said general would not have cared a whit. He had is f'ing medal, and soon another star to boot.
This false process affliction began in the 1960's from my experience, and today is almost overwhelming.
Speaking of self serving BS artists without clue one ... I just saw Sarah Palin run off at the mouth about how "entitlements like Social Security will consume the entire federal budget by 2035."
ReplyDeleteUh, no ... repayment of accrued debt due to flagrant over spending previously, on other things, and continuing today, is what might do that, not the "entitlement" per se.
This effort, both Republican and Democratic, to paint the problem as caused by things like Social Security is bull crap. The reason the budget may soon be 100% debt repayment is over spending in the past, and continuing now. Social Security is the victim of all this, not the cause.
Yeah, you can trim Social Security in any number of ways, which is in effect defaulting on at least part of the initial debt by Treasury.
You can get away with it because the US Supreme Court determined in 1960 that citizens have no proprietary claim on SSA benefits. So much for the "trust", eh? You betcha.
Similar to charging $1000 on your Visa card, then deciding you'll just pay back $500 because the debt is too high, eh? I'm sure Visa would love that, right?
Now then, what will they propose we do with the Chinese et al., who own considerable Treasury debt too?
Got it. Ring them up at Lo Buc Sovereign Money Pile, Inc. and say, whoopsie, we spent to much and paying you back is too hard, 'cause we gots to keep on spending too much, ya' know, ... so we're reducing the value of your federal securities to match our malfeasance! Um'kay?
Yea ... that'll work, you betcha.
A nice simple unpolluted deficit chart showing the expansion since the Vietnam War ended....borrowing is borrowing, spending is spending. And pay back is a beotch.
ReplyDeleteimgw:"http://www.briefing.com/common/images/content/pagecontent/DailyColumns/2010030309452910.03.02.FED.DFCT.JPG"
Wandering off now, muttering to self the new mantra: Up is Down, Down is UP!
#24 Aridog, that's effed up. How do we ever turn back to so-called "normalcy"?
ReplyDeleteFlorinsta # 27 ....
ReplyDeleteI not sure return to normalcy. We have at least two generations now that politically conflate words and definitions to the point of meaninglessness.
Good example: My chart in # 26 shows the "surplus" of the Clinton years. Okay, how many realize that "surplus" is FICA revenues collected in to the General Fund, like income and excise taxes, in essence borrowed from SSA immediately....but not expended from said General Fund. In short, we borrowed the surplus appearing in the general fund from SSA.
It was no real surplus at all. Only good thing about it is that it did reflect spending reductions by Clinton...e.g., he had "already borrowed" money he didn't need. 8-}