Behavior has consequences
On September 30, 2011, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an op-ed penned by two California Nurses Association (C.N.A. and affiliated with the AFL-CIO) members. They were identified as Genel Morgan and Rita LaBarge, RNs at Mills-Peninsula Hospital and Alta Bates Summit Medical Center respectfully. They wrote this op-ed in response to what they viewed as a growing black lash against their public theatre held in the name of Judith Ming, a patient that died due to a nursing error that occurred at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in the early morning hours after the C.N.A. organized one-day strike.
They begin their op-ed, entitled “C.N.A. members: Nurses protect patients”, with the following statement “To suggest that nurses who fight to provide safe care every minute of every day are using the death of one of our patients for our own gain is genuinely disturbing. One only has to view the video of the candlelight vigil held honoring Judith Ming to recognize the palpable grief in all our faces as we honored the life of a patient caught in the crosshairs of a system gone awry.”
This statement just about says it all when it comes to why so many nurses like myself and the public-at-large haven’t exactly been singing the C.N.A. praises about their behavior during the one-day strike and subsequent four-day lock out. A patient, a human being, died a tragic death and the C.N.A. nurses and their leadership
- First, call for an investigation via a press release,
- Second, hold a candlelight vigil in the name of the patient, announcing this “exhibition” of sorrow through yet another press release and then for good measure videotape and post it for all the world to see, and
- Third, begin a campaign to vilify the nurse that made the nursing error because we all know that “replacement” nurses aren’t real nurses just like substitute teachers aren’t real teachers, and doctors covering another doctor’s shift aren’t real doctors and so on.
Stay at the bedside long enough, and I have a couple of decades under my belt, and you see your share of nursing and medical mistakes. I’ve even stopped similar mistakes as the one reported to have occurred at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center. My readers may also recall the heparin overdoes that occurred in a number of pediatric patients not that long ago at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Then there was the nursing error at St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison, WI that lead to the death of a 16-year old mother who was at the hospital to deliver her child. In this case Nurse Thao, an experienced Labor & Delivery nurse, gave the mother an epidural anesthetic via IV causing the mother the have seizures and eventually die. Our nursing literature is rife with cautionary tales of nursing errors narrowly avoided or of those not caught that ended in tragic outcomes. Which is why, I found the C.N.A.’s crocodile tears about this tragic event so repugnant, because just when you think they can’t stoop any lower, they do. One must ask oneself have they no shame – apparently not!
Like falling dominos, the C.N.A. and their members set in motion a series of events when they walked away from their assignments to hold their one-day strike. They did so fully informed that should they hold their one-day strike those that didn’t report to work would face an additional four-day lockout so the hospital could meet its commitment to the 500 nurses that had been hired to cover the shifts of the striking nurses. Neither party was engage in any thing nefarious. The nurses, aggrieved with the state of the contract negotiations issued an intent to strike and when strides weren’t made (in their opinion) they held their strike – all legal and above board. Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in turn, unlike a grocery store or office couldn’t just close up shop and send the patients home for a day. Their only option was to hire registry/travel nurses to cover the one-day strike. However it’s not realistic that the hospital bring 500 nurses from across California and the country just for one-day so they did what most hospitals in the same situation would do, they gave these nurses a five-day contract. In turn they informed the nurses that walked away from their assigned shifts that they wouldn’t be allowed to return for an additional four-days, this rule didn’t apply to nurses that weren’t scheduled to work the day of the strike -- all legal and above board.
Whether what happened at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center was a case of catheter confusion, some other nursing oversight, human error, or negligence we’ll have to wait for the conclusions of the various investigations that are ongoing. The C.N.A. instead of vilifying the hospital or offending nurse should be actually asking how they can help ensure that nursing errors such as the one that occurred never happen again. Instead they chose to publish op-eds about their anguish, or issue quotes about “if only I had been allowed to return to work my shift the day after the walk-out, and posting videos of candlelight vigils to the web, giving lip service to patient advocacy. I think it’s important to note that this is the same group that has reportedly held 100 strikes over the past three years. Which makes it all the more important to remind the C.N.A. and their nurse members that behavior has consequences.
The Myth of the Employee Free Choice Act
As the New Year dawn’s unions and their supporters, many of whom are legislators that owe their elections to the vast sums of money unions donated to their campaign, are gearing up to tackle the “Employee Free Choice Act”, also known as the “Card Check Bill”. As with so much legislation the words that were chosen to describe the bill don’t necessarily provide an accurate picture of the intent of the bill. Oh sure -- free choice – everyone is in favor of free choice. Unfortunately this bill isn’t so much about free choice as it is about weighing the fight to unionize in favor of one group over the other.
Unions contend that employers impede their ability to unionize under the current system and thus are pushing for what they describe as a more streamline approach, which is the card check. Simply put if a union can gather a majority or set number of employees to sign cards indicating that they want union representation then voila the union “wins”, and if the employer drags their feet then the employer can face sanctions and fines. Now to some this may seem a simplified and fuss free approach to what can often be a long drawn out procedure to union recognition for employees who want such representation.
However, I wonder if those who support this approach would be willing to allow for the same approach to decertification? As it stands now decertify is an onerous and tedious task, and for good reason. Just as one should not approach unionizing without thought, full disclosure and discussion one should not decertify without full and complete discussion for all involved. Both the act of unionizing and decertifying can and often has far reaching implications, not only for the employees who are seeking this action but also for the employer and community at large.
Here is a link to information about the Employee Free Choice Act -- http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Employee_Free_Choice_Act. However, I propose to my fellow pro-union and “Employee Free Choice Act” supporters, allow the same rules that the Employee Free Choice Act will invoke to those wish to decertify, because those who want to ride themselves of a union should have the same “free choice” as those who wish to bring in a union, n’est pas?
Of course they may argue that the Free Choice Act may subject employees who wish to decertify to undue influence and intimidation and therefore a secret ballot is called for, but the same can be said for those who wish to unionize. A secret ballot protects all individuals and organizations from undue influence, intimidation and tampering. And yes unions are equally culpable of the same bad behavior they often accuse employers of perpetrating. Don’t just take my word for it, you need only look up the hearing transcripts of the NLRB hearing that involved Cedars-Sinai and the C.N.A. where non-union supporters (nurses) were threatened by C.N.A. representatives: Threats such as we know where your children go to school, and where you walk your little doggies (authors emphasis added).
So before you give the Employee Free Choice Act a pass, remember that if the same rules cannot be applied to those who wish to remove a union then the bill/law is flawed and is not deserving of support.