Chetzemoka

I was being hyperbolic; I thought that would be obvious.

not nearly as easily or quickly as they can move staffing agencies in the current climate

You and I must work in very different current climates.

You didn't personally experience that anecdote (and it's also just an anecdote). Show me a NURSING union that protects people who are dangers to that level. We don't because it's not our professional culture, so it's not how we run our unions. The president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association is still a practicing nurse. She has no personal or professional interest in protecting nurses who are genuinely dangerous.

I also have 20 years experience in management prior to becoming a nurse, including quality, safety and accident investigation experience. One accident doesn't prove that an employee is bad, no matter how much damage it cost. Systemic errors exist. Was that guy being impatient because management was on his ass to do more and more with less and less support? Holding him to an impossible schedule like they do the rail workers? How was he able to have his truck in a situation like that in the first place? Did he bypass safety signalling/communication, or did the signaling/communication policies not exist in the first place? If that driver was genuinely a dangerous employee and had no prior disciplinary action, then that's a management failure to document concerning actions in the past. None of that has anything to do with the union and the union was right to stick to the letter of the contract.

And policing needs to be reformed top to bottom. Union protection alone is not sufficient to create the culture of abusive power that exists in modern policing. That requires the full complicity of our legislative and judicial branches. (See: "tough on crime" politicians and SCOTUS shielding cops from accountability and responsibility.)

Pelvises that can accommodate both upright walking AND the size of human brains without, you know, killing the humans during birth.

they can just choose to go to a different staffing agency

That's just free market labor. Shit hospital nurses are free to bounce from facility to facility as well. Welcome to America.

A union gives me more power to enact change inside my own corporation-owned facility. Staffing negotiations give me leverage to force staffing levels that keep my patients both safe and receiving the care that they need.

I had a woman sitting in her own feces for over an hour on Sunday because our hospital chooses not to staff the central stock room on weekends and holidays, and we were completely out of the only size briefs that would fit her. I checked the next unit over and they were out too. This is a standard item that should be stocked at all times. I had to ask one of our transporters hunt them down for us.

Part of our union contract will be to demand that our local unit supply rooms are stocked no less than once per day 365 days a year. It's INSANE that an American hospital chooses to operate without that.

"The union" doesn't do anything. WE are the union. I AM the union. I'm planning to be one of the people sitting right there at the negotiation table working on our contract. WE will be the ones negotiating how disciplinary grievances are handled and the union only exists to provide us with legal representation to ensure that OUR chosen contract terms are adhered to.

Why do American nurses in particular believe such heinous lies and propaganda about how unions work? You overheard some hearsay from someone about a union that doesn't even represent nurses and you just swallowed that hook, line, and sinker?

Trust me, I started out my career working for a private equity owned SNF/LTC. Those places are horrifically terrible and should be outlawed.

And your particular issue with this individual nurse isn't really because they're agency. We have that kind of problem with full time regular nurses in our hospital being unprofessional children. But also our hospital corporation likes to play on our compassion to exploit us when in reality, that grandmother sitting in her feces is their fault for refusing to staff our fucking hospital properly.

Bullshit

I'm born and raised in Appalachia, my daddy worked in the coal mines and drove an 18 wheeler. Certified redneck enough that I confuse the shit out of my New England neighbors.

I went out and marched with striking nurses when Bernie put out the call, and I've never voted Republican in my entire fucking life.

OP, you need to learn what a redneck is.

We've gotten so much better at airplane evacuations over the years. The HEAVILY REGULATED airline industry is a masterclass in actually learning from tragedy.

Edit: Christ Almighty, I'll split the hair, you guys.

😂😂

What a gorgeous creature

Lmao, I'm your age and literally inhaled a bag of Werther's while I had Covid because Paxlovid tastes so bad. And I'm about to buy a cane for those days when it would be very helpful to make my invisible disability more visible to all those people trying to rush around me in the grocery store. I old.

Doctors don't work FOR WAGES meaning they are not hourly wage employees. Their pay structure is completely different, which means their LABOR MODEL is completely different. Of course they work for money.

Oh, I've been told by native Spanish speakers that I do this in reverse. Direct translating American English idioms and phrasing into my spoken Spanish.