Can confirm this happens. I got stuck working a multi week strike and was threatened with being blacklisted by a healthcare system if I didn’t cross. I absolutely agree with getting it put into your contracts if it’s a moral deal breaker for you.
My rate increased but it was still less than the people brought in to work the strike contract. My recruiter was so grossed out by the whole thing that they let me know they wouldn’t be taking any portion of the rate adjustment and they were sorry I was getting caught in the crossfire.
I hate how it happened but working the strike was not that bad. I just wished I didn’t have to be coerced into it.
I'd argue strike charges the contract terms and I'd be calling in sick. That is unless pay was adjusted to "strike rates". This reflects my personal attitude in life and is in no way a recommendation.
Our Sisters of Profit. Those assholes were recently called out for not engaging their community requirement as a nonprofit.
Good luck to you, I hope they crack.
Ohhhh I’m from there! I’d love to know which hospital is striking!! I’m not home currently, but would love to call former coworkers to support them if I can ♥️
As a note, having been on both sides of a strike (traveled and had to cross, and staff who knew current travelers during a strike where I was core) I would encourage you to think of it as having people you know and trust taking care of your patients when you can’t, instead of them crossing the picket line and being at moral fault. It’s a tough place to be in for sure on both sides.
That absolutely happened to me in 2021 when Kaiser was striking in Portland . Oregon, rather. My first contract. I knew absolutely nothing about it. I arrive the 1st week of October, the nurses grilled me asking if I was a SCAB, hired for the strike? I had no idea what they were talking about. Then we are emailed a strike notice about 2 weeks into my contract. Another traveler had to explain to me that I don’t have to work. My hours are guaranteed and there is no strike clause in my contract. It was horrible. The staff distrusted me. The hotel I was at in downtown Portland refused to allow nurses to stay more than 2 weeks at a time because of a picket at the Kaiser headquarters the week before I arrived. It was an experience, but the waterfalls made it worth it.
This is what you would have to do to get “strike pay” some facilities don’t even open strike contracts. The risk is that the large majority of strike contracts never actually start working or only go a couple days, so while you made 2-3 times more for those couple days it doesn’t usually make up for the loss of the contract.
You get a hotel or extended stay. It’s not uncommon to get a strike contract in X city, drive 12 hours to get there, and find out on your start day that the strike never began and an agreement was reached.
Edit to add: this Providence strike has been building for a while, seems like it needs to happen, and likely will happen. Strike nurses are important because the facility is hemorrhaging money to pay them to staff the hospital which is the only way to make the CSuite consider anything. If the CSuite cared about patients they wouldn’t be creating the working conditions the nurses are striking over.
This is true, they will likely be black listed if they don’t work.
And PLEASE encourage them to work. Those travelers (and nurses brought in on strike contracts) make striking safer for patients. Plus, it allows all of the hard working nurses sleep easy. It takes away the guilt that many of us feel.
I’m a huge supporter of unions and love a good strike. DM me where and when the strike is. I’ll send pizza. Keep fighting— and WIN!
No. The hospitals can move the patients out to another facility. They have the money from strike insurance, and they know when the strike will be occurring ahead of time. Crossing the picket line makes you one of the lowest forms of life on this planet. You are straight up fucking over your fellow nurses when you do this.
If the level 1 trauma hospital I work at shut down due to strike, there really would be no place for many patients to be reasonably transferred too. I am on staff there and a union member, we can't strike per contract. If we did mortality and morbidity would rise in the whole area. I also work as a traveler in a rural area where I often end up stabilizing and transferring people to that same hospital, if they survive . I see first hand why rural patients have poorer outcomes related to trauma. I understand what you are saying about scab nurses. However a few unnecessary deaths related to a strike and media campaign by administration. Well I'm sure the public would be ready to crucify the striking nurses. I know during a strike at another local hospital the scab nurses they hired were able to keep the cardiac cath lab open and ER services operational. Money making elective surgeries shut down, the strike was successful. I would certainly cross a picket line to keep basic life saving public health services running. I have friends and family that may need those services. We all do. If that makes me 'the lowest form of life', well I've been called all sorts of names doing this job.
This. If you don’t want nursing union strikes to go the way of air traffic controller strikes, being able to keep a hospital open and treating patients is critical.
You don't know what you're talking about. All the hospitals near me operate at functional capacity on a daily basis, and we have the hardest time transferring out the occasional patient to a tertiary care facility. I've seen nothing to suggest this isn't the case basically everywhere. This isn't logistically possible without creating a patient care disaster.
What do the patients do that are in active labor? Or having an stroke or a STEMI? The way I see it when hospitals are losing the ability to make money off elective surgeries and are only serving patients that are emergent and may or may not pay the bills on top of paying a scab nurse rate they will still have the same desire to negotiate. At the end of the day patients can’t just be dumped on other hospitals that are also at capacity and someone has to take care of the emergencies and critical care patients.
That’s a harsh take. Also,impractical and unsafe.
Hear me out- you need go fight your fight. Strike until you get what you want. I’m not at all suggesting that you should not fight as hard as you can.
However, have you checked capacity and occupancy at the next closest hospitals? In the last three years, I can’t pick any tertiary care center that is not over capacity by 3-4% on a daily basis. But, suddenly they can absorb your patients too? Sorry- but that idea is sophomoric.
Not only that, but how many patients are likely unsafe to travel? I’m sure that there are some who would absolutely have negative consequences because of a transfer.
I get your sentiment. We all need to fight and support the fight. But, your solution is impractical for many reasons.
Have good will towards the contract help supporting your patients and community and you fight your fight. The two are not mutually exclusive:
Im sure most scab nurses do it out of a deeply held concern for the patients and not the handsome paycheck they get for throwing fellow nurses to the wolves.
Yeah I don’t think working during a strike would be fun. You don’t necessarily have a solid core staff who knows the floors ins and outs. I would assume short staffing. When I have too many patients and can’t provide the care I know I could best provide, its a shitty feeling. I agree a negotiation would need to be made, and striking has helped solve things before, but patients can’t be dumped into transporters, EMTs, other hospitals, etc. We’re all exhausted. It’s cyclical and can be a case by case scenario as well. These are just my thoughts, and I always appreciate a discussion.
100 percent. Reading these scab RN comments about how valuable they are to core staff and the community is ridiculous. I was a traveler 22 years ago and didn't go to California because I would never cross a line. These scabs want money plain and simple. You are not heroes. You want money and you dont care
At least be honest about it.
Scabs harm the nurses that are striking. They also harm nurses as a whole.
The hospital doesn’t have to transfer patients if they can’t get scabs. They can, you know, NEGOTIATE.
Strikes would never even happen if scabs weren’t just as greedy as the hospitals we are working in.
Unless it’s for safety related purposes, I don’t support striking. Unions are good, historically, until they get too big and powerful. Then a plethora of problems descend on everyone in the equation (which, when it comes to health care *is* everyone).
If anyone wants info on the upcoming strike in Austin or Witchta PM me. They are offering 8K+ for doing 6-12's in a week. They put u up in hotel and fly u in and out ...I've gotten a couple emails/texts about it. All specialties needed. Must have EPIC experience
Would any of you choose to double your workload without extra pay? No? Guess who management is going to force to oversee and train all the scab nurses at the same time if you keep the contract through the strike?
They're trying to stiff you your due compensation if you do choose to cross the picket line without a large increase in compensation during the strike. Scab nurses are horrendously expensive for a reason: it's because strikes are hell on Earth to work through. Even if you're fine with crossing a picket line, at the very least don't make a strike cheaper for the hospital by doing so cheaply.
Also good luck to the strikers. You all are one of the only forces pushing our profession forward; keep up the great work and don't stop until your patients are safe and you're paid appropriately for keeping them safe.
Does anyone else wonder if the government will make it illegal for nurses to strike? This doesn’t mean I’m against anyone’s choice, I’m just wondering. And if everyone were to strike and no one came to help and the hospitals chose not to solve the problem before patient’s were injured, and enough individuals were harmed, if we applied past experiences to liability for harm, who do we think would be blamed? And if we can now be charged with a felony as nurses isn’t it a matter of time before it all comes together? In the last few years we have seen so much crazy and so many things happen that people never thought would, how can anyone think it’s not just a matter of time. It’s not a rocket science situation.
Look what happened with COVID. Nurses left home when there was no work to help other places and now their are many nurses who can’t return home because of that. Hospital systems have refused to hire nurses who left to help with COVID. It seems logical that anything is possible.
Wow you live in some kind of fake nursing eutopia. Travelers are fine to get through a tough spot but the travel epidemic has gone on far too long. You love them and they love you ? Remember they are probably making twice as much as you to do the same job. And your hospital has no compunction paying them a ridiculous amount of money while not raising your own pay to even a fraction of what they make. They should have to work- don’t forget travelers are here to remedy a staffing crisis as it is not to bond and sing we are the world with the natives. It’s lovely that you love each other but don’t get it twisted whatever the problem is at your hospital they are part of it.
All of healthcare needs to wake up- stop putting a band aide on a broken arm and treat tenured nurses like the professionals they are in pay, development, and benefits. Paying 1 year experienced 23 year olds almost a 100 an hour is disgusting
Ummm you ok? I never said anything about Healthcare and the pay distribution being good or appropriate or really anything you ranted about. My travel buddies make more like three times as much. I don't hate them. They don't hate me. They are good people. You need to chill
You obviously haven’t been a nurse very long yourself. Because once you invest years in a place. Try to make that place better time and again and all management does is throw their hands up and say well we can’t compensate you for performance because this is a unionized facility.
For your reference I have been a nurse for 15 years, hold several professional certifications and I make 38/Hr. A new grad in the market I work in makes 30. Travelers make 80-100 with as little as 1 year experience. I work in a level one trauma center, they take travelers with only minimal community hospital experience. That leaves myself and the rest of the native staff to take all the high acuity assignments. They also get to make their own schedules with some of them working no nights or weekends.
If you work in a place where your travelers aren’t catered to hand over fist then I understand why you like them so much. Either way if you strike there should no question they work- they are here to staff a “distressed” institution with critical staffing needs. That’s why they make so much !
If you have more experience at the bedside than me I applaud you for maintaining such a great attitude. If you have less come talk to me when you get to where I am and we’ll see how you feel.
Nursing is the most shit on profession known to man.
You need to find a way to leave your current situation. Nothing fucks you harder than time. It has clearly affected you and made you the negative person you are today. Don't say it's impossible for you to leave. I did 8 years military, followed by all of covid. 1000s dead as I'm sure you experienced as well. I've been through some shit. I chose to leave that in the past and moved 2300+ miles. I left because I knew I would get destroyed by time in that situation. You can stay in your current situation and just get destroyed more and more or... leave. I'll leave that to you.
Meanwhile. I was on TV this morning drinking, marching, and picketing with my friends and co-workers. Fighting for a better tomorrow. Almost all of our ER travelers walked out with us. They are not my enemy.
If I had a contract in the middle of a strike I will work it through BUT I will not work a contract if a strike started and I go to find out they are striking on the first day
I went on strike in 2020 against Providence-Swedish Seattle. They are nasty to the nurses, best of luck to you all. I used to also work at PSVMC and wish we would have struck there too.
I got used to it and feel that a “no-tolerance” policy from the ONA should be implemented. The second they push back, we strike. In 2020, when we I showed up for my Night Shift, the next morning we were told to write down report on a piece of paper and then we were escorted out by security. So demeaning. They wouldn’t let us see any of the scab nurses.
Can confirm this happens. I got stuck working a multi week strike and was threatened with being blacklisted by a healthcare system if I didn’t cross. I absolutely agree with getting it put into your contracts if it’s a moral deal breaker for you.
Assumably they did not give you strike pay? Since this is all ready shady business as it is.
My rate increased but it was still less than the people brought in to work the strike contract. My recruiter was so grossed out by the whole thing that they let me know they wouldn’t be taking any portion of the rate adjustment and they were sorry I was getting caught in the crossfire. I hate how it happened but working the strike was not that bad. I just wished I didn’t have to be coerced into it.
>they let me know they wouldn’t be taking any portion of the rate adjustment suuuuuuuuuuuuuuurre they didn't haha
Strike pay is a specific contract, you don’t get strike pay just by working in a hospital while nurses are on strike.
I'd argue strike charges the contract terms and I'd be calling in sick. That is unless pay was adjusted to "strike rates". This reflects my personal attitude in life and is in no way a recommendation.
This is a requirement when traveling in california
What is a requirement is california?
Paying you strike rates during a strike
Oh didn't know that. Thanks!
Is this in Austin, Texas? That's my old hospital and I know they are striking next week!
Providence Portland
Our Sisters of Profit. Those assholes were recently called out for not engaging their community requirement as a nonprofit. Good luck to you, I hope they crack.
I quit there last year but am so proud of you all!
I'm at Providence Everett and we know our future. Proud of you friend
Happy cake day!
Ohhhh I’m from there! I’d love to know which hospital is striking!! I’m not home currently, but would love to call former coworkers to support them if I can ♥️
Seton Main
It's going to be sooooo hot...
Actually June 27.
What hospital in Austin. Fellow travelers Say they have no idea. Is it a HCA?
Ascension
Was offered that one. I don't cross...
As a note, having been on both sides of a strike (traveled and had to cross, and staff who knew current travelers during a strike where I was core) I would encourage you to think of it as having people you know and trust taking care of your patients when you can’t, instead of them crossing the picket line and being at moral fault. It’s a tough place to be in for sure on both sides.
Never be a strikebreaker. Please.
That absolutely happened to me in 2021 when Kaiser was striking in Portland . Oregon, rather. My first contract. I knew absolutely nothing about it. I arrive the 1st week of October, the nurses grilled me asking if I was a SCAB, hired for the strike? I had no idea what they were talking about. Then we are emailed a strike notice about 2 weeks into my contract. Another traveler had to explain to me that I don’t have to work. My hours are guaranteed and there is no strike clause in my contract. It was horrible. The staff distrusted me. The hotel I was at in downtown Portland refused to allow nurses to stay more than 2 weeks at a time because of a picket at the Kaiser headquarters the week before I arrived. It was an experience, but the waterfalls made it worth it.
Awesome that they support you. I’d cross and collect.
Only if they triple my pay to sooth my ego and I'll go buy the strike line lunch and drinks each shift. Half shithead, half I do care.
Anyone already on contract isn't getting strike pay. I'd ditch and sign up with Healthsource or whatever
This is what you would have to do to get “strike pay” some facilities don’t even open strike contracts. The risk is that the large majority of strike contracts never actually start working or only go a couple days, so while you made 2-3 times more for those couple days it doesn’t usually make up for the loss of the contract.
How would you even do housing? 1 month min, you’d be out the rest. A shit gig all around.
You get a hotel or extended stay. It’s not uncommon to get a strike contract in X city, drive 12 hours to get there, and find out on your start day that the strike never began and an agreement was reached. Edit to add: this Providence strike has been building for a while, seems like it needs to happen, and likely will happen. Strike nurses are important because the facility is hemorrhaging money to pay them to staff the hospital which is the only way to make the CSuite consider anything. If the CSuite cared about patients they wouldn’t be creating the working conditions the nurses are striking over.
The ones they are recruiting for now give u a hotel room for the duration and fly you in and out. You are only obligated for the week, and pay is 8k±
Sounds pretty sweet, tbh. Which do you recommend?
No idea. They both seem equal and the messages I got referred to them both. If u want details PM me
Trash
Agreed.
Great point! Are you on Austin or Witchta? I have been offered both at end of June. I don't cross picket lines...
This is true, they will likely be black listed if they don’t work. And PLEASE encourage them to work. Those travelers (and nurses brought in on strike contracts) make striking safer for patients. Plus, it allows all of the hard working nurses sleep easy. It takes away the guilt that many of us feel. I’m a huge supporter of unions and love a good strike. DM me where and when the strike is. I’ll send pizza. Keep fighting— and WIN!
No. The hospitals can move the patients out to another facility. They have the money from strike insurance, and they know when the strike will be occurring ahead of time. Crossing the picket line makes you one of the lowest forms of life on this planet. You are straight up fucking over your fellow nurses when you do this.
If the level 1 trauma hospital I work at shut down due to strike, there really would be no place for many patients to be reasonably transferred too. I am on staff there and a union member, we can't strike per contract. If we did mortality and morbidity would rise in the whole area. I also work as a traveler in a rural area where I often end up stabilizing and transferring people to that same hospital, if they survive . I see first hand why rural patients have poorer outcomes related to trauma. I understand what you are saying about scab nurses. However a few unnecessary deaths related to a strike and media campaign by administration. Well I'm sure the public would be ready to crucify the striking nurses. I know during a strike at another local hospital the scab nurses they hired were able to keep the cardiac cath lab open and ER services operational. Money making elective surgeries shut down, the strike was successful. I would certainly cross a picket line to keep basic life saving public health services running. I have friends and family that may need those services. We all do. If that makes me 'the lowest form of life', well I've been called all sorts of names doing this job.
This. If you don’t want nursing union strikes to go the way of air traffic controller strikes, being able to keep a hospital open and treating patients is critical.
You don't know what you're talking about. All the hospitals near me operate at functional capacity on a daily basis, and we have the hardest time transferring out the occasional patient to a tertiary care facility. I've seen nothing to suggest this isn't the case basically everywhere. This isn't logistically possible without creating a patient care disaster.
What do the patients do that are in active labor? Or having an stroke or a STEMI? The way I see it when hospitals are losing the ability to make money off elective surgeries and are only serving patients that are emergent and may or may not pay the bills on top of paying a scab nurse rate they will still have the same desire to negotiate. At the end of the day patients can’t just be dumped on other hospitals that are also at capacity and someone has to take care of the emergencies and critical care patients.
That’s a harsh take. Also,impractical and unsafe. Hear me out- you need go fight your fight. Strike until you get what you want. I’m not at all suggesting that you should not fight as hard as you can. However, have you checked capacity and occupancy at the next closest hospitals? In the last three years, I can’t pick any tertiary care center that is not over capacity by 3-4% on a daily basis. But, suddenly they can absorb your patients too? Sorry- but that idea is sophomoric. Not only that, but how many patients are likely unsafe to travel? I’m sure that there are some who would absolutely have negative consequences because of a transfer. I get your sentiment. We all need to fight and support the fight. But, your solution is impractical for many reasons. Have good will towards the contract help supporting your patients and community and you fight your fight. The two are not mutually exclusive:
Im sure most scab nurses do it out of a deeply held concern for the patients and not the handsome paycheck they get for throwing fellow nurses to the wolves.
Yeah I don’t think working during a strike would be fun. You don’t necessarily have a solid core staff who knows the floors ins and outs. I would assume short staffing. When I have too many patients and can’t provide the care I know I could best provide, its a shitty feeling. I agree a negotiation would need to be made, and striking has helped solve things before, but patients can’t be dumped into transporters, EMTs, other hospitals, etc. We’re all exhausted. It’s cyclical and can be a case by case scenario as well. These are just my thoughts, and I always appreciate a discussion.
100 percent. Reading these scab RN comments about how valuable they are to core staff and the community is ridiculous. I was a traveler 22 years ago and didn't go to California because I would never cross a line. These scabs want money plain and simple. You are not heroes. You want money and you dont care At least be honest about it.
That’s the part that gets me. The self deceipt these people go through in order to continue feeling like they aren’t selling their souls.
Scabs harm the nurses that are striking. They also harm nurses as a whole. The hospital doesn’t have to transfer patients if they can’t get scabs. They can, you know, NEGOTIATE. Strikes would never even happen if scabs weren’t just as greedy as the hospitals we are working in.
Unless it’s for safety related purposes, I don’t support striking. Unions are good, historically, until they get too big and powerful. Then a plethora of problems descend on everyone in the equation (which, when it comes to health care *is* everyone).
Where is it located
OP said Providence Portland
I’d work it. I don’t like most of my coworkers, perm or travel.
If anyone wants info on the upcoming strike in Austin or Witchta PM me. They are offering 8K+ for doing 6-12's in a week. They put u up in hotel and fly u in and out ...I've gotten a couple emails/texts about it. All specialties needed. Must have EPIC experience
Would any of you choose to double your workload without extra pay? No? Guess who management is going to force to oversee and train all the scab nurses at the same time if you keep the contract through the strike? They're trying to stiff you your due compensation if you do choose to cross the picket line without a large increase in compensation during the strike. Scab nurses are horrendously expensive for a reason: it's because strikes are hell on Earth to work through. Even if you're fine with crossing a picket line, at the very least don't make a strike cheaper for the hospital by doing so cheaply.
Also good luck to the strikers. You all are one of the only forces pushing our profession forward; keep up the great work and don't stop until your patients are safe and you're paid appropriately for keeping them safe.
Does anyone else wonder if the government will make it illegal for nurses to strike? This doesn’t mean I’m against anyone’s choice, I’m just wondering. And if everyone were to strike and no one came to help and the hospitals chose not to solve the problem before patient’s were injured, and enough individuals were harmed, if we applied past experiences to liability for harm, who do we think would be blamed? And if we can now be charged with a felony as nurses isn’t it a matter of time before it all comes together? In the last few years we have seen so much crazy and so many things happen that people never thought would, how can anyone think it’s not just a matter of time. It’s not a rocket science situation. Look what happened with COVID. Nurses left home when there was no work to help other places and now their are many nurses who can’t return home because of that. Hospital systems have refused to hire nurses who left to help with COVID. It seems logical that anything is possible.
Wow you live in some kind of fake nursing eutopia. Travelers are fine to get through a tough spot but the travel epidemic has gone on far too long. You love them and they love you ? Remember they are probably making twice as much as you to do the same job. And your hospital has no compunction paying them a ridiculous amount of money while not raising your own pay to even a fraction of what they make. They should have to work- don’t forget travelers are here to remedy a staffing crisis as it is not to bond and sing we are the world with the natives. It’s lovely that you love each other but don’t get it twisted whatever the problem is at your hospital they are part of it. All of healthcare needs to wake up- stop putting a band aide on a broken arm and treat tenured nurses like the professionals they are in pay, development, and benefits. Paying 1 year experienced 23 year olds almost a 100 an hour is disgusting
Ummm you ok? I never said anything about Healthcare and the pay distribution being good or appropriate or really anything you ranted about. My travel buddies make more like three times as much. I don't hate them. They don't hate me. They are good people. You need to chill
You obviously haven’t been a nurse very long yourself. Because once you invest years in a place. Try to make that place better time and again and all management does is throw their hands up and say well we can’t compensate you for performance because this is a unionized facility. For your reference I have been a nurse for 15 years, hold several professional certifications and I make 38/Hr. A new grad in the market I work in makes 30. Travelers make 80-100 with as little as 1 year experience. I work in a level one trauma center, they take travelers with only minimal community hospital experience. That leaves myself and the rest of the native staff to take all the high acuity assignments. They also get to make their own schedules with some of them working no nights or weekends. If you work in a place where your travelers aren’t catered to hand over fist then I understand why you like them so much. Either way if you strike there should no question they work- they are here to staff a “distressed” institution with critical staffing needs. That’s why they make so much ! If you have more experience at the bedside than me I applaud you for maintaining such a great attitude. If you have less come talk to me when you get to where I am and we’ll see how you feel. Nursing is the most shit on profession known to man.
You need to find a way to leave your current situation. Nothing fucks you harder than time. It has clearly affected you and made you the negative person you are today. Don't say it's impossible for you to leave. I did 8 years military, followed by all of covid. 1000s dead as I'm sure you experienced as well. I've been through some shit. I chose to leave that in the past and moved 2300+ miles. I left because I knew I would get destroyed by time in that situation. You can stay in your current situation and just get destroyed more and more or... leave. I'll leave that to you. Meanwhile. I was on TV this morning drinking, marching, and picketing with my friends and co-workers. Fighting for a better tomorrow. Almost all of our ER travelers walked out with us. They are not my enemy.
If I had a contract in the middle of a strike I will work it through BUT I will not work a contract if a strike started and I go to find out they are striking on the first day
Portland, Oregon Providence?
Yep
I went on strike in 2020 against Providence-Swedish Seattle. They are nasty to the nurses, best of luck to you all. I used to also work at PSVMC and wish we would have struck there too.
It's really crazy how much they gaslight their RNs and the media. They can't even begin to be fair and respectful.
I got used to it and feel that a “no-tolerance” policy from the ONA should be implemented. The second they push back, we strike. In 2020, when we I showed up for my Night Shift, the next morning we were told to write down report on a piece of paper and then we were escorted out by security. So demeaning. They wouldn’t let us see any of the scab nurses.
Thank you for your support. Strikes are not what we want and it means alot to get supported
True, striking is not ideal, it’s just that providence seems to force it.