Nurses Strike?

Dr.Bunson

"The Irish Nurses Organisation and the Psychiatric Nurses Association have announced that they will escalate their action from next Wednesday with rolling work stoppages around the country."...

From what I can figure they are looking for a pay rise and a decrease in working hours.

When I want a pay rise, I speak to my boss reasonably!
When I want a shorter working week, I speak to my boss reasonably!
If he cannot provide this I will change to a job that can provide this.
I certainly will not hold my customers to ransom, nor will I put my customers’ lives/health in danger.

Down with this sort of behaviour, the use for unions in this country died with Big Jim Larkin. I don't know of any private sector employer that tolerates this carry on, why should it happen in the public sector

I’ve started this thread to see what others think about this farce…

Dr Galen

if i thought that the OP was doing any more than rabble rousing I'd have no problem in replying and maybe rebutting a few of his/her arguments. and if i'm mistaken and there is some serious though behind that post, please come back Dr and explain a bit more of your thinking, other than trotting out the relaible old chestnuts

Dr.Bunson

Okay, nurse baz, here is my underlying reason for this thread...

My Fiancée is due our first child in 2 weeks. Will your "dispute" compromise the life and/or health of my fiancée or child?

FlutterinBantam

What do you mean old reliables?

the man is speaking perfectly good horse sense.

Nobody in the pvt sector would get away with this crap.

They have benchmarking and procedures which are put in place to solve issues like this.

They have rejected everything and want to bleed the taxpayer dry,all because that guy Doran has painted himself into a corner and can't get out.

I hope Ahearn has the balls to tell them all to f***k off and abide by the generally agreed procedures like everyone else,and set up a domino effect which would leave the public service in turmoil,with the taxpayer the only loser.

Dr Galen

short answer mate is no.

(wish u all the best with your impending arrival, and all the health to your missus)

at present there is only a situation where nurses aren't answering telephones, or using computers. all the normal nursey stuff, (ie looking after the sick people) is still going ahead. so the talk of patients sufferng is both a Dept of Health/HSE scaremongering tactic and media talk. if these two things are having and the fact that nurses aren't doing them at present are having such a detrimental effect to the service, then one would have to be asking serious questions of the systems in place.

if the situation escalates, it will only be short work stoppages that occur. for example, all the nurses apart from a few will down tools for say an hour. in that time a skeleton staff will be left behind. in addition to those staff, members of the nursing management team ( all highly qualified and experienced nurses who have moved into management) would supplement the ward numbers. i can also say with near total certainty, that NO nurse would walk off the ward to picket lines if a patient was very sick and really needed them.

Dr Galen

Nobody in the pvt sector would get away with this crap.

old reliable number 1

we don't work in the private sector. i can see and understand the comparision you make, having worked in the private sector and run my own business for several years before entering nursing.

let me put it to you a different way.........

if someone worked under you, and reported directly to you, and also had no prior qualifications while you had a degree, but still got paid on average 3k more than you, what would you do??

probably what we did, which was raised it with the employers 6 years ago and said it wasn't right, would they sort it. they said yes in benchmarking 2006. we said cool. benchmarking then said NO. thy said that they couldn't reslove individual disputes like this etc etc. which is fair enough from them. but thats were we were tol to go??? so then, we went down a different road. the "normal" industiral relations road, within the Health service. all very clearly laid out, 6 steps of it. can be found on the HSE website if I'm not mistaken. and again we were told NO......so what does that leave us with?

In your private sector case, we could leave and go be an accountant/sales person/ whatever in another firm....but can a nurse do that??

Dr.Bunson

nurse_baz wrote:

i can see and understand the comparision you make, having worked in the private sector and run my own business for several years before entering nursing.

In your private sector case, we could leave and go be an accountant/sales person/ whatever in another firm....but can a nurse do that??

Seems like you have other skills under your belt than just nursing. Maybe running your own business is the way forward.

Unions, and the disruptive behaviour they produce, are slowly killing off the infamous celtic tiger. Imagine a foreign company considering a move to Ireland to take advantage of our highly skilled workforce, and then learning that the basic services are constantly threatening strike action. Don't you think that they would think twice???

Dr Galen

apart from this, there hasn't been anything from nurses in a long time. while i do agree that some union behaviours is wrong mate, and goes too far, sometimes actions like this are necessary.

what do you think is he best way forward for nurses right now, having read what i wrote previously, and i could go on too

mickoneill30

nurse_baz wrote:

o

if someone worked under you, and reported directly to you, and also had no prior qualifications while you had a degree, but still got paid on average 3k more than you, what would you do??

Could be happening where I work for all I know. Anywhere I've ever worked (always private sector) your pay is between you and your boss. Because when people find out what some other muppets are on then they either want more or move. Happened to me before. I found out a total idiot (who I generally had to clean up after) was on 10K more than me. I started looking around.

Dr Galen

mickoneill30 wrote:

Could be happening where I work for all I know. Anywhere I've ever worked (always private sector) your pay is between you and your boss. Because when people find out what some other muppets are on then they either want more or move. Happened to me before. I found out a total idiot (who I generally had to clean up after) was on 10K more than me. I started looking around.

so you weren;t happy to tolerate this situation.......

so what do 40 odd thousand nurses do?

mickoneill30

nurse_baz wrote:

so you weren;t happy to tolerate this situation.......

so what do 40 odd thousand nurses do?

My point was that is why generally we don't know what others are on. It just breeds trouble. The public sector is a whole other ballgame though where whole groups are on the same pay grade whether they're good or bad. I've no idea what you can do.

I do agree that nurses should get a pay rise if their wages and conditions are causing a brain drain to places like America (I think that's happening). I don't agree that people should get a pay rise just because other groups did.

Dr.Bunson

I can't imagine that ALL 40 thousand nurses have people reporting to them earning more than they are. That statement simply does not make sense. I suspect that there a number of nurses in this situation, and that there are many more jumping on the band wagon and using this as an opportunity to make a few quid.

I too have found myself in a situation in the past were subordinates were earning more than me. I fought with the boss over it, then changed jobs. I didn't encourage the whole company to strike.

Dr Galen

well there's 2 sides to that. the people i speak of work under the supervision of nurses so thats where the inequality lies and the frustration too.

as for the brain drain thats most definitely happening, it costs 80 grand to train a nurse these days and since 2000 we've lost 11000 out of the country.

Dr Galen

Dr.Bunson wrote:

I can't imagine that ALL 40 thousand nurses have people reporting to them earning more than they are. That statement simply does not make sense. I suspect that there a number of nurses in this situation, and that there are many more jumping on the band wagon and using this as an opportunity to make a few quid.

I too have found myself in a situation in the past were subordinates were earning more than me. I fought with the boss over it, then changed jobs. I didn't encourage the whole company to strike.

so where do nurses go?

Dr.Bunson

How about performance related pay, it works in the private sector. The better job you do the more you are paid. That way the nurses that are good at their jobs will be rewarded better than those that are just see it through to retirement...

Dr Galen

Dr.Bunson wrote:

How about performance related pay, it works in the private sector. The better job you do the more you are paid. That way the nurses that are good at their jobs will be rewarded better than those that are just see it through to retirement...

i've gone on record here saying that i'm all for performance related pay, but problem is how do we measure the performance of a nurse or teacher.

very good mr nurse......today u saved 2 patients and wiped 6 bums......good job......have a bonus

mickoneill30

nurse_baz wrote:

as for the brain drain thats most definitely happening, it costs 80 grand to train a nurse these days and since 2000 we've lost 11000 out of the country.

To me if that was the statistic that I was hearing on the radio every day I'd be all for the nurses to get more money. It makes sense and it's easy for the masses to understand and requires the government to justify itself a lot more.

But asking for more money and less hours just because other people get it, will get no sympathy from a lot of people especially since we've gone through a few weeks where every second day you were hearing of jobs being lost all over the place in the private sector.

Dr Galen

But asking for more money and less hours just because other people get it, will get no sympathy from a lot of people especially since we've gone through a few weeks where every second day you were hearing of jobs being lost all over the place in the private sector

again i can see your point. but in saying this, i really don't see what is so bad with wanting to better your lot when you measure yourself against comparable other professionals in your field. nursing is not easy money, and over the past number of years, nurses have become highly educated and skilled professionals. the days of the nurse as the handmaiden, or the angel at the bedside are very much gone.

Of course, caring and looking after people is a major part of our job, but now, so is administering chemotherapy, running nurse led clinics within outpatients, working in A&E assessing and treating minor injuries, roles that are part of the development of the profession as a whole, and because of this, make nurses pretty good value for money in the grand scheme of things.
these things also have had a major positive effect on patient care, and really thats the whole aim of healthcare in the first place.

just also to point out, this isn't all about taking, the HSE/Dept of Health want major reform in the Health service here, and so far the only people who have stepped up and said yes to reform as nurses. As part of the talks that went on over the past few weeks, the unions said, yep lets do these reforms lets expand the role of nurses, lets look at rostering etc etc. and lets do them by x date. but when the employers were asked to even give a rough date of when nurses could look forward to a shorter working week, the employers couldn't give us anything at all to go on.

and now we find ourselves in this position, where this problem has been in public record, along with the claims of nurses for nearly 18 months now, and the HSE have had notice of strike for 60 odd days......and yet we still had to go down this road.

Dr Galen

just on the point of the "brain drain" i think this from the business post makes interesting reading

Over half of young female nurses plan to quit

01 April 2007 By John Burke
Almost 60 per cent of young, female, college-educated nurses intend to leave their jobs, a new Department of Health-funded study reveals.

Almost 60 per cent of young, female, college-educated nurses intend to leave their jobs, a new Department of Health-funded study reveals.

The research highlights major problems within the health system concerning the high turnover of staff.

The report shows that hospitals have trouble retaining the best and most capable young nurses, with specific problems keeping experienced staff from critical-care departments.

Job satisfaction and ‘‘kinship responsibilities’’ ie, issues connected to their families - are cited as the two most significant factors in nurses deciding to leave their place of work.





Just under a quarter of nurses of various ages, qualifications and experience wish to leave their jobs and either move abroad or seek work in a new sector, the report shows.

The study will be published tomorrow.

Previous studies into the turnover of nursing staff within the health system have placed the figure much lower, at about 10 per cent.

The majority of nurses (83 per cent) who expressed ‘‘intent to leave’’ were planning to leave permanent positions.

Just over 40 per cent of the sample had worked in their current position for three years or more. This seems to suggest that many senior experienced nurses were planning to leave the service, according to the report’s author, Professor Geraldine McCarthy of University College Cork.

More than three-quarters of those who planned to leave were staff nurses and 18 per cent were employed as nurse managers. Some 56 per cent had three or more years’ clinical experience with their employer.

Some 18 per cent planned to leave positions in critical care areas, while the figure was 47 per cent in medical/surgical units. McCarthy said these figures indicated that ‘‘a significant number of staff with considerable experience were expressing an ‘intent to leave’ “.

More than one-fifth of those who expressed intent to leave held a degree, compared with only 8 per cent of those who intended to stay, revealing a much greater drain among nurses who are young, college-educated and have greater promotional possibilities.

Almost 60 per cent of those who expressed an intention to leave their positions were single, reflecting that a high number of single female nurses leave the country to travel and work.

Professor McCarthy noted that, since the mid-1990s, the supply of nurses had consistently failed to meet demand.

About 84,000 nurses are practising within the various divisions of nursing, with the majority of them registered within the general (50,637), midwifery (13,179) and psychiatric (9,556) divisions, according to 2005 data from the nursing board.

Despite recruitment strategies implemented by the Irish government and health services, these figures fall short of fulfilling the required demand.

The study was conducted through a specially designed questionnaire that was randomly distributed to 352 registered nurses at ten hospitals across the country.

purple'n'gold

Just seen on the 5:30 news, a small baby sick and in isolation and the nurses will not answer the phone to his distraught mother. Shame on them.

ballooba

My impression from listening to various is that the pay and conditions is not the real problem at all. There is this whole other aspect where nurses don't feel respected or valued. i.e. They feel that the government is not listening to them, the experts, the people on the ground, in dealing with the health service crisis.

This is not however the message that the nurses are sending out. I find the whole thing very confusing. Would the above be correct to any extent?

Mitch Connor

purplengold wrote:

Just seen on the 5:30 news, a small baby sick and in isolation and the nurses will not answer the phone to his distraught mother. Shame on them.

why doesn't the mother go to the hospital? Why doesn't a doctor answer the phone? Why doesn't a person in admin answer the phone? Why does it seem a nurse is the only person in the hospital that can answer a phone.

Mitch Connor

ballooba wrote:

My impression from listening to various is that the pay and conditions is not the real problem at all. There is this whole other aspect where nurses don't feel respected or valued. i.e. They feel that the government is not listening to them, the experts, the people on the ground, in dealing with the health service crisis.

This is not however the message that the nurses are sending out. I find the whole thing very confusing. Would the above be correct to any extent?

i would imagine it is partly true - but equal pay and conditions would be a sign that they are respected and valued.

Dr Galen

to both of you above

ballooba...........its abit of both i think. the pay and working conditions issues are huge and have been going on without resolution for 20 odd years now. this in tun has made many nurses feel like they are undervalued and un appreciated in the service.

Tauren.........
your right, jesus christ, from listening to others (esp in AH) and on the news, you'd think all nurses did was answer phones all day and sit on computers.....

is_that_so

nurse_baz wrote:

i've gone on record here saying that i'm all for performance related pay, but problem is how do we measure the performance of a nurse or teacher.

You can measure anything providing there is the will to do so.
The public service in general has shown some degree of reluctance in this area, and why wouldn't they when there is free money under benchmarking.

You do so by identifying acceptable standards and targets exactly the way the private sector does. So for example a nurse with one year's experience would be expected to perform certain tasks competently. If S/he does then they are rewarded. Now if and it's a pretty big if , nurses are prepared to do that for their 10% then I see nothing wrong with their claim.

A large part of the working population do not have the power to close down a vital public service and have to resolve things with good old-fashioned talk. Hence the reason why there is such animosity when self-serving public unions do pretty much as they wish.

ballooba

nurse_baz wrote:

ballooba...........its abit of both i think. the pay and working conditions issues are huge and have been going on without resolution for 20 odd years now. this in tun has made many nurses feel like they are undervalued and un appreciated in the service.

Do you think the nurses would have got more sympathy if they had tackled the latter first?

It seems to me unions only seek ever to tackle the former, as such they are seen as greedy. I think the teaching profession has lost the esteem with which it was held say 50 to 60 years ago. In turn the wages for teachers have fallen out of line.

University lecturers who do less work and have less worries than teachers are paid more than what teachers are paid. Often teachers would be more qualified than lecturers. The teaching unions have never sought to tackle the lowered standing of there profession though. I often wonder why, educating and inspiring the next generation is a very important job.

I may be generalising above. There are hard working lecturers and there are slack teachers.

Time Magazine

ballooba wrote:

Often teachers would be more qualified than lecturers.

That's a load of balls. In general you do not get a lecturing position with less than a Masters and the majority have doctorates.

And unlike teachers, a lecturer's job is not solely to lecture. Their primary function is to research; a skill which most teachers don't have.

Dr Galen

is_that_so wrote:

You do so by identifying acceptable standards and targets exactly the way the private sector does. So for example a nurse with one year's experience would be expected to perform certain tasks competently. If S/he does then they are rewarded. Now if and it's a pretty big if , nurses are prepared to do that for their 10% then I see nothing wrong with their claim.

QUOTE]

its a decent idea but the problem you have and especially with nurses that it is very much an experietial thing. I may have seen something 5 times in a year, you may have seen in never in the same period.

nurses have to be competant in what they do at all times, so again, measuring competance maybe wouldn't be a good marker. its not really like in other jobs, where someone who is 5 years qualified will have a different job role to someone 2 years qualified. you will both get your patients when you come in to work and have to go through all the same stuff with them as such.

it may beinteresting though, for greater minds than me though, to look at maybe making bonuses contingent or in part contingent, on increased knowledge or career development. u must do x courses and gain x amount of points in order to get bonuses. the only problem being, that when you start to get into this sort of thing, people tend to look more at targets and fulfilling them than quality of service,( look at the NHS) and in health that can be very dangerous

Mitch Connor

ballooba wrote:

The teaching unions have never sought to tackle the lowered standing of there profession though.

that's funny - i remember a load of teachers strikes during my leaving cert year. What was that about?

ballooba

is_that_so wrote:

You can measure anything providing there is the will to do so.

Aha, that's the crux of it. To assume this is to over simplify. Evaluation is a form of power which people can subject themselves to or resist. Given that there is a poor working relationship with the government then people are likely to resist.

Any form of measurement is open to manipulation. This would be seen as playing the system.

is_that_so wrote:

You do so by identifying acceptable standards and targets exactly the way the private sector does. So for example a nurse with one year's experience would be expected to perform certain tasks competently.

That is getting dangerously close to scientific management. Breaking people's jobs down into little tasks that they must perform. Again people will play the system, they will only do things that are measured. You will never get a list of tasks that are all encompassing. You destroy morale and you begin to hear things like: "It's naw in mee jawb disscripshun".

ballooba

Tauren wrote:

that's funny - i remember a load of teachers strikes during my leaving cert year. What was that about?

I would imagine it was pay and conditions. I don't imagine that you would seek to tackle lower standing in the community through a strike.