Hospitals are on a nationwide effort to take down nurses unions, figuring they will do it before the next shortage. Nurses in unions have won good benefits in many states when negotiating contracts in the past. We took advantage of our power.
With the economic downturn has come an effort to take back the health insurance and pensions that that nurses made many sacrifices to obtain. Hospitals say no one gets good insurance any more. They say pensions are outdated. They pit groups of workers in hospitals against each other.
Nurses sacrificed a lot to get to decent benefits for ourselves. We went on strike. We sacrificed wages for benefits.
We still have the power we have always had. We are the ones who take care of the casualties from something like the Orlando bombing. When they stream into the emergency room, it is the nurses who receive them and take care of them. It is an upside down world when the people who have the skills to care for complex patients have to fight for their benefits while the paper pushers get exorbitant salaries and bonuses. It is the nurse who helps the doctor save lives not the administrator.
The question is: Will nurses take the power they have, as the backbone of the medical field without which it cannot function, or will we back down? Its up to us. The future of nursing is at stake.
