Exactly Who Does a Union Protect?
It has been years since I was an RN employed by the state of Massachusetts. I was forced to be in the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) and was forced to pay dues to an entity that I politically disagreed with. As a member the MNA endorsed Clinton and “Hillary-care”; although I was against it, I was essentially being told who to vote for. I was an exemplary employee and received commendations, but I will certainly tell you that the MNA did not protect anyone other than the incompetent while I was employed there. All this talk of unions ‘protecting workers’ was a bunch of hooey back then, and it is still a bunch of hooey now!
The union rules make it impossible to fire incompetent nurses. The union has also made a big deal out of giving “lip service” only to pay raises or new contracts for the nurses. We were without a contract for many years and were always told our raises would be retroactive. I had visions of being skeletal remains before I would receive my retro check and I ended up leaving ‘Tax’-achussets before I became fossilized.
Today we have a president who thinks unions are fabulous and, for politicians like him, they certainly are. They are a forced entity gathering money and power, sort of like a modern day Mafia organized to steal wages, wield ‘muscle’ and encourage union workers to act out if their demands aren’t met. (I am having flashbacks from episodes of The Soprano’s as I write this. Synopsis: Two guys work while six sit in the lawn chairs on the jobsite. The employer is told these are “union rules”–eight men are needed for the job, but only two competent men are actually doing the work…)
I can remember being in charge of a twenty-four bed acute psych ward. The craziest patients were not my problem—it was the crazy, lazy union staff that was my biggest problem. No matter how fair I was when writing the assignments, someone was not happy. The simplest tasks, such as escorting patients to dinner or AA meetings, were riddled with problems. Like little brats, some union nurse or mental health worker did not want to do the assignment. I used to tell them if they could find someone to switch, let me know and I would change the assignment–but I made them have to work to change that assignment. The union nurse thinks it’s the facilities job to keep her happy every moment she/ he graces the facility they work for. I could write many books filled with some of the insanity the staff pulled inside the asylum.
First let me clear up a big assumption: Union employees do not show up “to work”. If you gave an assignment, you were going to have to work to get them to do it. Sometimes looking into the day hall I could see staff members who thought their job was to watch TV with patients. And I cannot tell you the number of times patients told me the staff scared them. Even if we caught staff stealing, or lying, or being totally incompetent it was the union that made it difficult to fire them. Unions teach them to do the least and get paid the most, and teach their lower staff to disrespect their superiors, assume no responsibility or consequences for their actions. Even if someone has literally endangered a patient, or jeopardized the entire ward’s safety by not finding a weapon on admission, there are so many rules and flaming hoops that’s it’s almost impossible to fire anyone.
Another fact is that being in a union does not make you a better RN. An RN once threatened me with physical assault, and a mental health worker told me he had a “metal glove from the shipyard” that could do “quite a lot of damage” if he hit someone with it. The RN who wanted to punch me was upset because I was going to write her up for insubordination. She was the same RN who thought it was perfectly fine to her toenails in the nursing station at work…
The news today is the Michigan unions are assaulting and threatening more violence. Michelle Malkin writes:
“As the Michigan House voted inside to approve right-to-work legislation allowing workers to choose whether or not to join/fund unions as a condition of employment, protesters outside the state Capitol ambushed a tented information booth sponsored by the pro-right-to-work state chapter of Americans for Prosperity. Angry union mobsters were filmed cursing and screaming just before the attack.
One hurled an unidentified object at police officers. Another screamed at a citizen journalist filming the chaos: ‘Freedom of speech this, you f’n fascist a**hole!’ Several peaceful AFP members and supporters were stomped on and punched while trapped under the tent as the labor operatives chanted: ‘This is what democracy looks like.’ Young Michigan conservative activist and YouTube entrepreneur Steven Crowder was beaten by at least two union assailants while trying to protect the tent and those inside.
Of course, this is just more of the same twisted ‘civil and honest public discourse’ of the administration’s union protection squad.”
Union violence has a long history and yet, par for the course, our POTUS and his administration will not condemn this behavior. On the contrary, they seem to thrive on bullying tactics and will use it to their advantage, as they did when the Black Panthers threatened voters. This is why I do not endorse unions or their supporters. I am not in league with protecting violent incompetents nor will I side with criminal and dishonest labor maneuvers in order to terrify and abuse employers and employees. Bottom line, I don’t condone Mafia-style intimidation and neither should our government. After all, the last thing any of us needs in our hospitals are thugs for nurses and healthcare workers.
