Work Update Part 2
So the time for negotiations came. You know what happened? Management walked into the meeting, all in a line, arms crossed, and refused to speak. The state mediator was even speechless! He had never seen something so ridiculous in his entire career. Management pushed a written statement across the table saying that they WOULD NOT SPEAK in negotiations until we took any and all plans for increased retirement off of the table!!! This is the plan I mentioned that cost them NOTHING EXTRA but allowed us to receive better-managed money!!!!!
Needless to say, since one side wouldn’t talk, negotiations stalled. They did this on purpose so that the whole process would be drawn out longer and longer and make the staff less and less willing to wait it out and more likely to just give in to them. And it was working. The staff started to get nervous. They wanted to settle, but didn’t want to give up what they were entitled to.
Okay so since there was so much commotion, things got hairy. We the staff and we the union, were getting antsy. There are rules you have to follow if you are to make “moves” to demonstrate to your employer your dissatisfaction. For instance, you don’t get to just go on strike. You first have to file all these motions and make your case in a slow, organized, and “fair” manner. So we held a public rally to get our information out to the public via the media, and to gain support and demonstrate the support that was already there. In fact, my father who was a union rep at GM for years, came along.
My father retired two years ago. Last year GM decided to take away my mother and father’s health benefits, leaving people in their late 50s who had worked ALL their life (my dad worked 35 years at GM, 6 days a week and overtime every day) without healthcare insurance. The buyout package he was promised didn’t work out the way it should have, and my parents are pretty much screwed. I hear them talk about money all the time and how tight it is. And you know what? My dad turned to me after hearing that a nurse who worked 30 years would only make 400 a month in retirement and said “Meg, you have no idea how bad that is. You know how mom and I are struggling, and this is less than HALF of what I get…” That cemented me. I knew I was right in what I was fighting for. I don’t even plan to retire from kaleida, but I’ll be damned if it’s fair for people who work their asses off in their 60s to be unable to retire safely and securely.
After the rally, we tried other methods to get things moving, but the management lied about being ridiculous and said that it was the UNION’s fault that negotiations were stopped. Supposedly it was OUR fault they didn’t talk, and stood with their arms literally crossed in exactly the same way. The truth was so skewed I couldn’t believe it.
Anyway, as things got more and more heated, the union was forced to make a move one way or the other. Since surveys showed that we still had staff support, we had to consider our next options. There were only a few: either (a) we would do a pre-strike movement where we would picket outside of the site. We had previously avoided this, not to protect our reputation but to demonstrate that we had NO INTENTIONS of interfering with patient care. We did not want to demonstrate on hospital grounds to SPECIFICALLY avoid causing any problems for patients and families. Now we were considering the need to do that, so that the patients we serve would remind management that if we were not there, their children would be shipped off to Rochester, Syracuse, Pennsylvania, or Ohio to get care. The second option if (a) did not work was (b), a work stoppage or “strike”. These were scary things. No one really wanted to strike, because if that happens it creates problems. At other hospitals, outside nurses would come take the place of striking nurses. But at childrens our care is so special that agency nurses wouldn’t be able to so what we do, and patients who were at highest risk may need to be transferred to other facilities far away. NO ONE WANTED THIS, so we did our best to avoid it.
But, because management was stalling, because staff were getting upset, because the union was being challenged, and because we needed to act fast to protect everyone involved, these things had to be considered. We surveyed the staff to find out where they stood on the issue, and they still supported us. So, we filed a 10-day notice with management that they were warned that if they did not sit down for negotiations, we would start picketing. They had 10 days to respond, and waited until exactly 9 days and 23 hours to offer a date for new negotiations. The staff thought this was a good thing, but we knew what they were doing: stalling for more time and that they were just going to stay silent at bargaining anyway.
Then the doctors got involved. Many of the doctors employed at Childrens are contracted-out, which means that they make private agreements for hours, wages, and privileges. These doctors come in, assess, make a plan, and then leave all the dirty work for the nurses and claim all the glory for themselves. Basically, while management was playing the game, the doctors joined in, too. They feared that their ridiculously high income would be discovered with all of the research we were doing. They also worried that if Kaleida had to spend more money compensating the people who did the WORK, they would have to take less raises and less ridiculous contracts. So they wrote letters and sent them to the staff, defaming us and calling US selfish and greedy. They tried to scare us and told us that we would all lose our jobs if we went on strike, because patients would be transferred and they would close the hospital down. They completely missed the point. Patients are HERE in BUFFALO BECAUSE OF CHILDRENS!!!! Otherwise they WOULD all be shipped across the state and to other states. Us being here working hard is why our children even have a place to go! But staff started thinking that perhaps Buffalo would vote to close CHildrens if no one was working. Now, this is ridiculous for a few reasons. First of all, we were NOT ready to strike or even offering it. But the doctors used that threat to scare people and make them feel they were not informed. Secondly, NOT EVERYONE was willing to strike, so patients would only need to be transferred on DOCTORS ORDERS, and no doctor was going to lose his pay by transferring patients. Third, management had the complete control over a strike by sitting down and fairly discussing the new contract, but they refused.
Drama of the Century.
Management continued to play up this fear by making threats to the staff. I just didn’t understand it. Why in the WORLD would you take this lying down? When my bosses flat out told me that I did not deserve equal retirement, I was ANGRY!! How could you not be? Instead of scaring me it fired me up. You will NOT tell me I don’t deserve reimbursement that is fair and consistent with the quality of my work. And the doctors? How could you possibly let the people that have the MOST to gain from screwing you, and who screw you constantly, to tell you what to think? I couldn’t believe how naive and uneducated people were. It made me nuts.
Basically, while we were prepping for negotiations, the mood of the staff changed. Slowly at first- I don’t want you to think for a second that we went ahead because we wanted to and not for the staff’s needs. But there were a few people who started freaking out about the “recession” and how we would lose our jobs if things got so bad we went on strike. Ridiculous, but it was happening. After we had sent out the picket notice and management reluctantly “agreed” to negotiate, we held our second attempt to negotiate.
We didn’t get very far. Management pushed across the table a write up of the ONLY things they would agree to, which EXCLUDED retirement. They literally wouldn’t contribute so much as ONE CENT more toward their workers making a livable retirement. This delayed things even longer, and pushed our buttons even harder. So faced with this problem, we asked the staff to vote.
We presented them with the contract proposal IN WRITING, and set a date for a vote. The staff majority, ~80%, wanted to keep fighting. But that 20% who wanted to give up were very loud. Over the next few weeks while we were telling management that the staff overwhelmingly voted down their “offer”, the staff minority went around campaigning against the whole bargaining thing and tried to convince staff to give up along with them. This was such a horrible time- people were fighting among themselves, and the stupid management were still making their megabucks and still winning.
To make this incredibly long story a little shorter, we sat down with management one last time before following up with demonstration action. Management proposed a VERY minimal, not really even noticeable, increase in retirement. Because they effectively wore out the staff, this time the staff agreed to accept their “offer”. So in the end, after months of researching, planning, advocating, we were left with nothing.
So the new contract came out, and you know what was heard? NEVERENDING BITCHING!!! The staff is upset that they didn’t get the changes they wanted, and that some people got raises and others didn’t, and it’s all because THEY REFUSED to DEFEND THEMSELVES!!!!! It never ends- people will never be satisfied, even when they had the power to advocate for themselves. I’m glad that the contract part is over, though, because I no longer have to be in the middle of all of this. And every time someone complains, I remind them of all the HOURS people like me put in to defending them and supporting them-time and effort that they threw away. Assholes.
Oh and the icing on the cake? Kaleida delayed our retro checks. The contract was “settled” around Christmas time, and it’s now almost April and we have gotten NOT ONE PENNY of the money they owe us. Convenient, huh?
So, all of that was just what I went through on the bargaining council! There is so much more to tell.
For instance, a general update. I am still working nights, and still working 12-14 hour shifts. Although there is a law coming in July that bans Manditory Overtime, I am still threatened with having to work 16 hours against my will and my agreement per the schedule whenever someone calls in sick, doesn’t show up, or too many people deliver in time for us to accommodate them. Lots of fun. We’ve had some drama on our floor, because we got a lot of new hires who thought that mother-baby was easy. They thought they were getting hired to sit in a nursery and hold babies. They all quit when they realized we are THE busiest department (a fact) in the entire hospital and that we have to cross-train in 4 areas, two of which are critical care. So we were short staffed for months and months. Things are better now that we got a new batch of girls, but we also have problems with some of the girls who HAVE stayed on our floor (but I’m not going to write about that because if anyone read this it would be against their privacy). Oh yeah, and Childrens tried to get rid of all the LPNs who worked there, and my immediate managers fought to take them on our floor to avoid them all losing their jobs. So LPNS from peds and other floors now work with us. We have been blessed, as many of them are excellent workers, but a few of them are bitter about now having to do REAL work and try to play certain “cards” and claim abuse based on certain “ethnic” factors. BULL SHIT. You just don’t want to do any work. Hey, I can completely understand that it must suck to be told you are going to lose your job unless you go to another floor. But ONE, be appreciative that ALL OF US on Maternity have been punished to accommodate YOU because we were HELPING you when no one else would. All “your” floors just let you go without a fight. We didn’t even know you and took you in and gave you a job. So if you’re bitter, don’t be bitter at us. Too bad if you have to work harder on our floor- it’s that or take the lay-off. Be glad you HAVE a job.
Work still burns me out. Even though I only work “two nights” per week, I lose sleep the day I have to work (because I’m obviously working), and never get to catch up because I’m at school every single day 9-5. The job is so hard, the patients are so needy, no one takes care of themselves, and we’re constantly getting screwed. Tis the life of a nurse. Wonder why I have stress?
I feel like there was so much more to say about work, but I’m exhausted reliving the whole contract drama, so I’ll just update on work as it comes to me (later on).