Reader comments
Nurses' union efforts die

Phil | 1:08 a.m. Jan. 15, 2008

I am never going to Salt Lake Regional Medical Center

Art | 7:00 a.m. Jan. 15, 2008

I have worked in a 'unionized' setting and it was frequently contentious. I was forced to help pay for the union leader's big cars and fancy living. It is much nicer to work without union caused coersion. Ronald Reagan decertified the air-traffic controllers union and fired all the employees that refused to work during the ilegal PATCO strike. Air fares dropped and tension was greatly eased. There should be no tension within a hospital.

Anonymous | 8:07 a.m. Jan. 15, 2008

Unionism is the refuge of the incompatent and lazy. CHeck out teachers and government employees.

Comments continue below

Absurd | 9:18 a.m. Jan. 15, 2008

I'm not at all a fan of unions. However based on what I have heard from several sources close to the situation it may be one of the only ways to end what has become a very hostile work place and prevent retaliation from hostpital management agianst the nurses. It also seems to me that if the hostpital would like certain nurses to be supervisors then pay them as such and asign them duties permanantly and in line with the raise in pay.

A Disaster Averted... | 10:20 a.m. Jan. 15, 2008

I worked for a hospital in a non-clinical setting that was unionized. While there the nurses went out on strike. I lasted a few months and I was able to view the negotiations from a non-biased perspective. I was an administrative intern during the time and sat in on many of the meetings.

Hands down, it was the worst thing I have witnessed from administrative and clinical perspective. The biggest losers through the entire experience were the patients. The entire experience was contentious and deeply bitter and personal. I feel for the nurses and their work environment and think that the administration should have been more sensitive to their concerns and work loads. However, it was my experience that the union made it very difficult for any decent negotiations to occur. Even after an agreement was finalized the nurses were still bitter and anger.

My take is administration should take any reasonable steps to keep the unions out and take care of the nurses that work on the front lines. The nurses should also meet administration half way and make some changes.

Unions work in some respect but keep them out of healthcare!

Anonymous#2 | 10:28 a.m. Jan. 15, 2008

I have worked at SLRMC for many years now and have witnessed first hand the harassment these nurses have been through for many years now. I feel they have been targeted for simply trying to make better working conditions for proper patient care. The union was the only answer to what has become a very hostile work environment. FYI Lori, the spoke person for the nurses, was not the only RN fired last week. They have fired multiple nurses with in the last week, each with more then 20 plus years of time and experience at SLRMC, some with more the 35 years dedicated to helping patients and serving this lousy facility that only cares about making money! If I were you I would think twice about going to SLRMC for any reason.....they will be staffed with agency nurses that don't know the hospital well enough to give proper and decent patient care.

Anonymous | 12:02 p.m. Jan. 15, 2008

My support goes to the nurses and to Lori Gay. She is a fine nurse and that is a great loss to SLRMC and patients. I back the nurses!!!! all the way!!!

MTM | 12:38 p.m. Jan. 15, 2008

Unions haven't been needed in this country for over 50 years. If they were so useful, the cars produced in Detroit would be the best in the world (since virtually everything in Michigan is unionized), but that is not the case.

Unions need to go away. Their entire purpose has become to sustain themselves, not benefit the members.

Proud to be an RN | 1:04 p.m. Jan. 15, 2008

I work at SLRMC and it is a great place with caring staff. I have been here for almost 8 years and was here when the original talk of unions was started. Sorry, but I think unions are a sham and I am actually glad that we are not going through with it. Here's a tip, you don't like where you work, find another job, there is a nursing shortage. If SLRMC is such a crappy placce, you must ask yourself why these nurses stayed for 20 and 30 years.

DEN | 1:13 p.m. Jan. 15, 2008

I belong to a union and sometimes it benefits me and sometimes it gets in the way. The whole reason unions came about is because of abusive employers who do not care about or listen to their employees. In that case they can provide at least some respect in terms of salary, benefits, workplace environment, etc. If we just had employers who treated their employees like a respectable human resource, there would never be any need for nor talk about creating unions. Everyone loses when people go on strike but I believe it is ultimately the employers who are mostly to blame. They need to view humans as a resource and stop being so concerned with the profit margin and how large the bonuses are for the top executives.

SLR Staff | 1:53 p.m. Jan. 15, 2008

Salt Lake Regional is a fine hosptial and has issues like any other. But, they have been targeted due to high pressure nurses exerting force on the rest of us to push their agenda. This has negatively impacted patient care. I am glad it is over and hope that we can move on without the hostility between groups.

MadMax | 2:29 p.m. Jan. 15, 2008

To Anonymous at 8:07 am:
Your statement is grossly unfair and inaccurate. I dare say you have not been employed in government or as a teacher or you would know that incompetence and laziness are not attributes of either of those groups of workers. One must meet high levlels of qualification to gain employment in either of those fields. The work is demanding (Have you ever tried to satisfy all of the public all of the time? It is an impossible task.) and evaluations are regulary completed on all these workers. Those who are found deficient are counselled and placed in programs for mentorship and improvement. It is easy to complain and make unsubstantiated allegations. It is quite difficult to serve the public and deal with complaints when things do not go as each person wants in spite of special consideration and effort. I hope you don't ever have your work held up to public scrutiny where the only the side of the story being told is that of the complainers.

slrmc employee | 2:42 p.m. Jan. 15, 2008

I feel that when it comes to the union I don't think it will fix the problem. The problem is with managment whose main priority is money and their bonuses. The problem is not the nurses, you will see that now that they are gone. The problems are only going to get worse and the patients are going to suffer. The patients are the real losers here, not the nurses that lost their jobs, like someone said above there is a nursing shortage. I would bet they already have jobs. It's too bad that a few people can bring down one facility. What a shame!!!

insightfull | 3:47 p.m. Jan. 15, 2008

anonymous#2
with all the laws there are protecting organizers, the nursing shortage, and the high cost of recruiting / hiring experienced workers, I am sure there is much more to this than we are hearing. It sounds like others (SLR Staff's comment) were getting pressured by these nurses. Like "Proud to be an RN" says, there is a nursing shortage, if things were so bad there, why did they stay so long?

Lane Mier | 4:24 p.m. Jan. 15, 2008

Systemic improvement may be driven by caring individuals, but it is management who must lead implementation of that improvement.
It would appear that the nurses who lost their jobs, lost the battle at SLRMC, but management could loose two fold. First they have lost valuable employees with vast amounts of knowledge and experience and second they may loose the war of idealogies if their system does not provide adequate customer service and the place closes and leaves them without jobs. Time will tell...

ANONYMOUS #3 | 6:06 p.m. Jan. 15, 2008

Having worked at slrmc for 10 plus years now I have also seen first hand how these nurses have been treated. These nurses stayed so long to try and change what has turned into a an out of control issue that has just taken a big turn for the worse. Things have not been bad for 30 years only since the hospital went from Holly Cross and non profit to SLRMC a for profit. This is and has always been about patient care, all these nurses wanted was to keep the level of patient care at its highest the way it was when profit didn't matter. I give SLRMc a year before it has to shut the doors. Good luck to all that still work there!

anon | 7:18 p.m. Jan. 15, 2008

Having worked at SLRMC for a number of years and watched the hospital change hands from charitable to
for profit, I see the bottom line driving management
to keep costs low at the expense of quality care.
Many nurses left for various reasons. As of the last 5 years, management expected charge nurses to accept
incoming patients whether or not there was adequate
staffing or if there was adequate staffing, some
nurses were not yet capable of high acuity patients.
Wouldn't you rather have an experienced ICU nurse
tell your bosses that a situation is unsafe from a
patients' standpoint --since we hospitals in SLC
are not field hospitals, why would anyone want to
jeopardize a human life? The union organizations
were trying to keep human lives safe--both from
an RN and a patient situation. If management would
deny access to discussion on a safety basis, then
where could nurses go?

wYo8 | 8:01 p.m. Jan. 15, 2008

We can thank unions for weekends, the 40 hour work week, decent wages. healthcare, retirement, safety rules, etc. I have worked in states that enjoy unions and in right to work states. I had a boss who said I was to honest sent red flags up right a way and later I was sure glad I had a union to help protect me. you do have some worms that are members. But I have also seem a manager state he hate unions. He would try and nail union members and overlook scabs getting away with all kinds of things. Now we have half the work force because mangement was finally forced to deal with the problems they created. The kitchen got too hot for the scabs and left the company. now we just have a boss nobody likes even fellow mangers.

in sight | 8:51 p.m. Jan. 15, 2008

I find it fascinating that these nurses are claiming they are patient advocates.
When I was there these nurses were never willing to mentor the new nurses. "I had to leave because of that". One would think, with all their experience they would teach the new comers, all they did was criticize. They had no intension on building, they wanted to destroy. If that's what a union is all about, I don't want any part of it.

so phil ... | 9:33 p.m. Jan. 15, 2008

You are never going to SLRMC again, because they don't have a union? What do you think? IHC doesn't have a union. U of U doesn't have a union? They seem to be managing ok.

S/P SLRMC | 11:19 p.m. Jan. 15, 2008

I worked for SLRMC from the days of Holy Cross to the days of Iasis and have worked in another Iasis hospital. There was a reason that the sisters sold the hospital and it was strictly financially driven. Iasis has been a responsible owner, has continued to invest capital monies into the SLRMC campus, and operates their hospitals responsibly. Unionization is not the answer at SLRMC - the answer is the establishment of an effective nursing administration to rebuild. The nurses that were fired remained at the hospital because it was and is an excellent place to work.

bjrn | 9:51 a.m. Jan. 16, 2008

genda is to cut workers where possible. Usually it begins with the nursing staff.Then they go thru the maintainence and housekeepingstaff. When nurses are short staffed is when mistakes are made. Nurses can only be in one place at a time.Now we not only have our nursing duties to perform, we have to become computer experts.Well, I'm glad I' m almost out of it now. If had another life, I wouldn'be a nurse.

Proud to be an RN | 4:49 p.m. Jan. 16, 2008

That's the bottom line and problem with some nurses I have worked with. They "eat their young" and are resistnat to change. Is it that hard to remember the first time you walked into a new job? It's difficult, and you rely on a mentor to show you the ropes. We can make it easy or difficult for others coming into the field. I have been a nurse now for almost 10 years and I love what I do! I'd be a nurse again if I had to choose! There are a million opportunites. Those who don't beleive that lack vision.

slc rn | 2:19 p.m. Jan. 20, 2008

Utah nurses need to support the nurses who were fired by Iasis by NOT applying there to work or working there through agencies. Iasis has a history of lowering the standard of care in nursing through unsafe staffing patterns, lack of proper equipment and supplies and hiring uneducated and unexperienced administrators. Firing your senior nursing staff is a ridiculous and vindictive move. It is no wonder that Iasis cannot attract and retain qualified nursing staff. By the way most of the full-time staff (6)at Pioneer Valley ICU (another Iasis facility) is fleeing to higher quality SLC hospitals.

RN | 2:49 p.m. Jan. 20, 2008

Way to go slc rn...I've to agree with you

Jen | 8:43 p.m. Jan. 22, 2008

Too bad... I am a RN who worked in a Vermont hospital where we voted a union in while I worked there. It was a great decision. The patients benefitted from mandatory nurse to patient ratios, higher wages for nurses, on-call pay so nurses were more likely to come in to work extra when the unit was busy and several other items. The process of voting in the union was a little bitter... but really... the hospital administration is NOT in it for much more than the bottom line. Why should RNs be expected to be patient advocates at their own expense... Nursing is a JOB. The reason people do it is to pay the bills. We just happen to get to care for patients in the process. We must not ever sacrifice our own dignity and principles "to be patient advocates." I currently work at a large hospital in SLC and would like nothing better than to see unions come in to the community of nurses here.

icu rn | 2:38 a.m. Feb. 3, 2008

I have worked in several ICU's in SLC, including SLRMC and I can attest that the conditions there are unsafe and out right scary. I am glad I no longer work under these conditions and I am greatful to have had the opportunity to work with these great ladies who have sacrificed their jobs trying to improve conditions in that hospital. I agree that as RN's in this state we need to boycoot Iasis. With all the jobs out there none of us need to work for this company. There are plenty of great opportunities in this valley. None of us need to feel threatened the way these nurses did and do at SLRMC.

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