Is a High Mz Profession
1988 1988-09Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 3 →
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Although they accepted latest offer by wide margin, many nurses believed they could have won more if their leadership had fought hard enough. days. As one CNA nurse noted, "Hospitals are not caring for the people who care for patients' health." Even the local news media couldn't help but observe the irony of healthcare workers being asked to sacrifice their healthcare benefits.
Hospital bosses betray
The hospital workers in Local 250 ratified their new contract because management backed off from its demand of copayments on heathcare insurance and fewer sick days. But before the ink was even dry, hospital management was "reinterpreting" the new contract. Local 250 representatives explain that Affiliated Hospitals had decided to "lock" into their jobs the 100 union members who crossed the picketlines during the 20-day strike.
Union members who honored the picketlines would have to "bid" for work without regard to seniority. But this attempt at union-busting was rebuffed by an arbitrator who ruled in favor of the union, stating that the seniority of striking workers would be respected.
Before the nurses settled, Local 250 hospital workers were given permission by the striking nurses to cross their picketline to return to work.
But the nurses were determined to continue their fight for better wages and working conditions against the profit drive of hospital management. Confronted daily by life and death situations, and job conditions filled with stress and a high "burn-out" rate, they felt they had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Their acceptance of the latest contract offer was predicated on the recognition of the fact that they had pushed this struggle as far as it could go.