Speaker 1: It's it's it's it could happen here. The podcast that
Speaker 1: we open sometimes yes, this is, this is, this is,
Speaker 1: this is how we do this job. Um it is.
Speaker 1: It is also a podcast that is very very often
Speaker 1: about strikes, and someone's presently this is this is an
Speaker 1: episode that is not about the Giant rail strike that
Speaker 1: everyone was focused on that didn't happen. Um. And the
Speaker 1: reason it's not about Okay, I mean, obviously it's not
Speaker 1: about that because it didn't happen. But the other reason
Speaker 1: it's not about that is that there was another giant
Speaker 1: strike that was really i think ignored by both sort
Speaker 1: of the media and the people who normally would be
Speaker 1: following strikes that was happening at about the same time.
Speaker 1: And that is a massive fift person nurses strike. Uh
Speaker 1: up up up in Wisconsin. And to talk with us
Speaker 1: about that. Wait, did I say that right? Minnesota? Did I? I?
Speaker 1: Did I confuse Wisconsin and Minnesota. Oh my god, I've
Speaker 1: always do this. They did treat a strike, you are, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. There's some part of my brain that never
Speaker 1: quite like figured out which one was Wisconsin and which
Speaker 1: one was Minnesota, and it just like flips them in
Speaker 1: my mind, they're just like they're just the state that's
Speaker 1: sort of over there from Illinois. I don't I don't
Speaker 1: really have an excuse because like I'm from here, like
Speaker 1: i've I've I've lived not in the Midwest for like
Speaker 1: six months now wow, okay, like a year of my
Speaker 1: life when I was like unbelievably small child. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it is. It is. Yeah, there's been only strikes in Minnesota.
Speaker 1: And with me to talk about the strikes that are
Speaker 1: not happening in Wisconsin is Danielle, who is a nurse
Speaker 1: at Methodist Hospital and a steward for the Minnesota Nurses Association. Danielle,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Thank you, thank you for having me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you for coming on. Um. Okay, so
Speaker 1: I guess the first thing that I want to talk
Speaker 1: about is the kind of strike that you all were doing,
Speaker 1: because this is something that I've seen a lot with
Speaker 1: nurses strikes, but I don't think people who aren't in
Speaker 1: nurses unions like talking about very much. Which is basically
Speaker 1: doing a three day strike or doing a strike that's
Speaker 1: for for for a set number of days, but it's
Speaker 1: not indefinite. Um. And I wanted to ask about that
Speaker 1: specifically as a tactic A bit. Yeah, absolutely. UM, it's
Speaker 1: not uncommon in the health care sector at all to
Speaker 1: do one day, two day, three day, five day, seven
Speaker 1: day strikes. UM. We usually leave like an open ended
Speaker 1: strike for kind of a lasted je effort um to
Speaker 1: get the employer's attention. UM. So there's a lot to
Speaker 1: coordinate to compensate for a three day strike. UM. It
Speaker 1: affects everyone's job at the hospital and then after three
Speaker 1: days they have to flip everything back. UM. That UM,
Speaker 1: that type of disruption in capital is UM has been
Speaker 1: really effective um across the nation. So we're hoping that
Speaker 1: they hear us loud and proud, but it's challenging. They
Speaker 1: have a lot of money. Yeah yeah. And I think
Speaker 1: from from what I've talked to other nurses about this
Speaker 1: strike and also other people have done nurses strikes, is
Speaker 1: that like there's like a huge pool of scabs, which
Speaker 1: makes me really hard and is it is it the
Speaker 1: case that part of the reason why you do one
Speaker 1: of these limited strikes is that it's it's a lot
Speaker 1: harder for them to coordinate like bringing in scabs for
Speaker 1: limited amount of time that it would be for like
Speaker 1: hiring them full time for a definite strike. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: so travel nurses. I mean they are those strike nurses
Speaker 1: men strictly just for those three days. They are oriented
Speaker 1: for you know, a few hours prior to starting at
Speaker 1: seven am on Monday. UM, so there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of time to learn the entire facility. And since we
Speaker 1: are gone, the only ones left to orientate our managers
Speaker 1: or any nurses that have to stay for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: We really didn't have money at all across the line. Um.
Speaker 1: So it just compromises patient safety and care in general. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no way to create teamwork with just three days
Speaker 1: of brand new nurses. Um. So just um, the hospital
Speaker 1: is just more accountable for system airs. Um. They try
Speaker 1: to keep those issues as internal as possible and not
Speaker 1: disclose them to the public. But there's a lot that happened.
Speaker 1: They've It's funny all the media reports are like or
Speaker 1: we're just like straight up printing press releases being like
Speaker 1: there have been no internal disruptions. Stomach, I don't believe that, Like,
Speaker 1: there's no way there's like it's just not true. They
Speaker 1: are just lying, so lying and to prepare for us
Speaker 1: to go and strike. I mean, they try their hardest
Speaker 1: to discharge as many patients as possible Sunday prior to
Speaker 1: our strike, to empty out hospitals. The thing is like,
Speaker 1: you can't just you're not a magician. You can't make
Speaker 1: sick people go away. Um. There was a lot of
Speaker 1: readmissions because of that. You're discharging people too quickly. Um.
Speaker 1: I know what the children's hospitals they actually um like
Speaker 1: shuttled forty four children out to other surrounding hospitals two
Speaker 1: because they couldn't get enough travelers to work. You can't
Speaker 1: get fifteen thousands travelers. So that's what they did to
Speaker 1: try to undermine us. It's a lot of moving things around,
Speaker 1: and I am hoping the public there's an uproar with
Speaker 1: the public about this. That's I don't know who's paying
Speaker 1: for you know, the cost of shipping kids to different hospitals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I assume the hospital is not going to pay for it. Yeah, God,
Speaker 1: so yeah, I guess we should move into like how
Speaker 1: we got to the point where fifteen thousand nurses or
Speaker 1: went on strike, which I think, I mean certainly the
Speaker 1: largest nurses strike like in the in the private sector.
Speaker 1: I can remember, Like it's I think I think it's
Speaker 1: one of the largest the US ever had. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Can we talk about like I get and this this
Speaker 1: is there's also sort of a broader question here about
Speaker 1: like what the U. S healthcare system looks like in
Speaker 1: year two of this plague in the sector that's already
Speaker 1: been sort of just decimated by like incredibly veno profit seeking,
Speaker 1: greedy corporations. Yeah yeah, so what what what? What? What
Speaker 1: have been the conditions that have been leading up to
Speaker 1: this strike? They got this many people off of the line. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean, our health care system has been unstable um
Speaker 1: for quite some time. Hospitals have been consolidating so much,
Speaker 1: like closing clinics and facilities, um, just to maximize profit.
Speaker 1: It's um like there their whole goal is kind of
Speaker 1: like how airlines overbooked for flights, they create like an
Speaker 1: artificial hospital beds shortage in order to maximize profit. So
Speaker 1: they've been doing that for years and then also just
Speaker 1: buying up little hospitals to control the market more. UM.
Speaker 1: They've also are starting their own insurance companies just to
Speaker 1: double dip into communities wallets. So that's been going on
Speaker 1: prior to the pandemic. Pandemic hit they were not ready.
Speaker 1: They didn't have enough PPE at all, because it's not
Speaker 1: there's no UM, it's not financially incentivized to have extra
Speaker 1: pp ON. And that's their logic. I remember in the
Speaker 1: beginning of the pandemic, like my my aunt and uncle
Speaker 1: work for hospital, and like we were trying to get
Speaker 1: the masks, and like we wound up like we were
Speaker 1: like doing contracts with like like my like literally my
Speaker 1: family in China was like, I know a guy who
Speaker 1: knows a guy who could, like who who like has
Speaker 1: a mass manufacturing thing. It was o god, it was
Speaker 1: so grim. It was Yeah, it was a mess, and
Speaker 1: we didn't have enough PPU. We had to reuse stuff
Speaker 1: instantly UM. And we were never compensated for it either. UM.
Speaker 1: We just were forced to work harder and longer UM
Speaker 1: for the same pay. And now hospitals are trying to
Speaker 1: normalize that staffing UM shortage and say, well that's it,
Speaker 1: that's you know, so you just have to work with
Speaker 1: what we're giving you. UM. In this shortage is just
Speaker 1: it's causing unnecessary medical errors and deaths, and it's just
Speaker 1: a disservice to our community. Yeah, it's going kind of
Speaker 1: down a dark path. So I think all of that
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, hospitals really showed their true colors. And
Speaker 1: I know the nurses really realized that the hospital is
Speaker 1: only there too, just like fat in their wallets. They're
Speaker 1: not there for us. They're not The goal is to
Speaker 1: make us all leave the bedside and just outsource all
Speaker 1: of their employees. You would escape all liabilities if you
Speaker 1: have all travelers in place, there's um, there's no real
Speaker 1: incentive to hold the hospital accountable for institutional failures. Can
Speaker 1: you explain what travelers are for the audience people who
Speaker 1: may not know. Oh, yeah, absolutely, UM. So travel nurses
Speaker 1: come across her like across the entire um nation, and
Speaker 1: they are contracted through travel companies that work with hospitals. UM.
Speaker 1: So if there's a nursing shortage, um, there will be
Speaker 1: open positions to apply for those contract positions that are
Speaker 1: like short terms, so either like a four week, six
Speaker 1: week or if it's like a strike contract, it would
Speaker 1: be like three days, seven days, whatever it might be. UM.
Speaker 1: And they're paid handsomely. I know for our three days strike,
Speaker 1: those travel nurses, those strike nurses specifically for three days,
Speaker 1: may ten k each for three days and they didn't
Speaker 1: even know the facility. Some of them never even worked
Speaker 1: in a hospital. I don't I don't understand the require aerments. Um.
Speaker 1: It's confusing. How Yeah, And I'm not trying to demonize
Speaker 1: travel nurses in any sort of way. There's amazing travel nurses.
Speaker 1: I've worked with some. They're great people, but they're um,
Speaker 1: it just undermines um, like our profession. Like it's it's
Speaker 1: hard to improve our profession when you have people that
Speaker 1: can replace you. Um, there's no real change we can make.
Speaker 1: It's just we're fighting each other. And travel nurses are
Speaker 1: independent contractors. Yeah, exactly, So the hospital doesn't pay them benefits. UM,
Speaker 1: they don't take vacation, they don't call in six Um.
Speaker 1: They save the employer a lot of money um because
Speaker 1: they don't have to like provide any hospital resources such
Speaker 1: as like employee health or workers compensation or anything like that.
Speaker 1: And they just have that six week contract that they
Speaker 1: focus on and they they're definitely paid their worth. There's
Speaker 1: less liability on the hospital too. If there's any medical errors,
Speaker 1: it's easier to like blame the travel nurse instead of
Speaker 1: blaming like institutional failures. UM. Travel nurses they just they
Speaker 1: can't unionize. There's just not a way. There's not like
Speaker 1: a common area for them to come together and yeah,
Speaker 1: create a union. So that's the hospitals like that. Um. Also,
Speaker 1: when you have more travel nurses at a hospital, that's
Speaker 1: less funding that can go to our union. So like
Speaker 1: we pay union dudes every month, UM, and if hospitals
Speaker 1: are hiring more travel nurses, our union gets less funny,
Speaker 1: less power sadly, Okay, do you do? You do? You know?
Speaker 1: Who else wants everyone to work as contract workers so
Speaker 1: they can't unionize. Ever, it's it's the products and services
Speaker 1: that support the show and we're back. So all right,
Speaker 1: I guess moving on from that, well, okay, I guess
Speaker 1: I guess before we fully move on to talking about
Speaker 1: how the strike was sort of organized, UM, can we
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about what staffing shortages looks
Speaker 1: like and what what the effect that has on patients
Speaker 1: is because I think people like I think people this
Speaker 1: is something people like kind of conceptually understand but don't
Speaker 1: like viscerally get what it means to have a staffing
Speaker 1: shortage in a hospital. Mhm UM. So with inadequate inadequate nursing, UM,
Speaker 1: staffing levels by experienced nurses. UM, there's an increased rate
Speaker 1: of hey sent falls, infections, medical errors, UM, increase in deaths,
Speaker 1: increasing pressure ulcers, UM, increase in readmission rates, so having
Speaker 1: to go back to the hospital because UM, you weren't
Speaker 1: given like high quality care at the hospital. It is
Speaker 1: just kind of mediocre if nurses are kind of strapped
Speaker 1: with time and I have to divide their attention between
Speaker 1: too many patients. So I don't know if you actually
Speaker 1: are legally allowed to say this, but like how many
Speaker 1: patients like per day roughly are like you are, like
Speaker 1: you are treating patients are retreating the day um. Our
Speaker 1: hospital at Methodist has about four beds and we've been
Speaker 1: at capacity so above a hundred percent, And you're probably wondering, well,
Speaker 1: how do you get above a hundred percent? UM. The
Speaker 1: e ER will board patients meeting a patient will stay
Speaker 1: on a cart and they'll be in a hallway and
Speaker 1: always will be lined up with patients that are just
Speaker 1: waiting for other patients and other units to be discharged
Speaker 1: so they can take that that UM, so they can
Speaker 1: wait in the e R for up to two to
Speaker 1: three days just waiting to be like really admitted um,
Speaker 1: so we've been at capacity for a long time, and
Speaker 1: that is that is purposely done to maximize profit, just
Speaker 1: because of they've been consolidating, closing other hospitals, UM in
Speaker 1: other neighborhoods. Like they're like they're they're charging all those
Speaker 1: people who are just like laying there in a hallway
Speaker 1: right absolutely, or even um if people come in for
Speaker 1: surgery and they have to after surgery, they go to recovery.
Speaker 1: They can sit in recovery for up to eight hours,
Speaker 1: which normally after surgery you only need to be there
Speaker 1: like a half hour to an hour kind of depending
Speaker 1: on how you will wake up from anesthesia, and then
Speaker 1: you go to your room. But we are just holding
Speaker 1: them in recovery because we're waiting on beds and rooms
Speaker 1: to be available. Because the hospital does not plan an
Speaker 1: advance at all, it's not cost effective. Yeah. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean it's funny because it's like it's it really seems
Speaker 1: it's sort of one of those things where it's like, literally,
Speaker 1: this entire process would be enormously less expensive if you
Speaker 1: hire like four more people and didn't close every hospital
Speaker 1: around you. But like you know, it's it's it's not
Speaker 1: it's not about efficiency. It's about like making sure you
Speaker 1: have as many dying people like sitting in a hallway
Speaker 1: so you can charge them more. It's like exactly, it's
Speaker 1: just like people are profitable and not healthy people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: m hmm, yeah, I mean it's really it's like there
Speaker 1: is just something like sort of particularly venal and disgusting
Speaker 1: about here. It's like, you know, it's it's all of
Speaker 1: the same, like, Okay, well, we we've we've we've built
Speaker 1: up a monopoly, and we're using your monopoly to force
Speaker 1: everyone to user services. And then we're you know, we're
Speaker 1: we're using contract workers to a place to people who
Speaker 1: normally do the job. But it's like, well, it's with healthcare,
Speaker 1: and it's like instead of just like every TV show
Speaker 1: being awful, it's here's a bunch of people who are
Speaker 1: getting sick and dying because we just don't have enough
Speaker 1: nurses exactly. And then the only thing the hospitals do
Speaker 1: um is um. They have all the managers go around
Speaker 1: and tell nurses okay, today, we gotta flex up. They'll
Speaker 1: use terminology like that that sounds like empowering and like
Speaker 1: strong man, we gotta flex up today, meaning we want
Speaker 1: you to take more patients than you like safely can meeting.
Speaker 1: Like if you're if you work on a medical surgical unit,
Speaker 1: it's usually like fortified patients is what's recommended for one
Speaker 1: nurse to have for twelve hours. They'll ask you to
Speaker 1: take six or seven Jesus and they'll call it flexing
Speaker 1: up and they're like, well, yeah, but Boble, there's flexing up.
Speaker 1: Why aren't you flexing up? And it's just it's that
Speaker 1: type of like corporate speak and empowerment language, um that
Speaker 1: forces us to risk our license. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: one of one of the consequence of this that I mean,
Speaker 1: it's really obvious if you've been following sector at all,
Speaker 1: is that Okay, Well, it turns out if you if
Speaker 1: you work a bunch of people like basically to death
Speaker 1: and you don't give them a free sources and you're
Speaker 1: making them take too many patients, it's that people just
Speaker 1: start quitting. And yeah, can you talk a bit about
Speaker 1: sort of the shortage that has been happening because of
Speaker 1: that too, because that's I think a really bleak like
Speaker 1: just in the long term too. It's just I don't know, like,
Speaker 1: if you want to have an even vaguely functioning society.
Speaker 1: The fact that you can't keep people as nurses. It's
Speaker 1: really bad. Absolutely, Yeah. Pandemic hit and nurses realize that
Speaker 1: they're just they're not being paid their worth. There's travel
Speaker 1: jobs that are you can make two hundred grant a year,
Speaker 1: three undergrand a year, um, just doing travel nursing. And
Speaker 1: then they're kind of sold on the idea that you
Speaker 1: own your schedule and you can just kind of plan
Speaker 1: around vacations and other times off you need, and you
Speaker 1: just kind of book like a four week stint at
Speaker 1: a hospital. If you don't like it, you can leave. Um.
Speaker 1: So they kind of just sell our jobs back to us.
Speaker 1: But it's not good healthcare. Yeah, it is. It's like
Speaker 1: you know, I've talked about this with like like people
Speaker 1: who work at Starbucks for example, where it's like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: like if if you're just constant moving people around and
Speaker 1: nobody's like actually stays at a place, and you never
Speaker 1: you never build up a community of people who are
Speaker 1: working with like your cares, you know, it's like okay,
Speaker 1: well you're not going to get good stuff. It's like yeah,
Speaker 1: like this is like like this is people's lives exactly.
Speaker 1: And those UM travel travel nurses, I mean their their
Speaker 1: goals are usually like financial freedom, UM like all of
Speaker 1: our goals UM so, and their goals are always short term.
Speaker 1: You know, all I have to do is just deal
Speaker 1: with this hospital for four weeks and then I'm gone. Well,
Speaker 1: how is that going to fix any institutional area errors?
Speaker 1: I mean there issues there. I mean, they never will
Speaker 1: hold the employer accountable. Yeah, and especially like it seems
Speaker 1: like like, you know, even even even if like everyone
Speaker 1: walking like I don't, I don't think you could have
Speaker 1: a functional hospital system if everyone was a travel nurse.
Speaker 1: But like at some point it feels like there's no
Speaker 1: way for there to be like there's no way for
Speaker 1: people to like keep leaving hospitals to go be travel nurses.
Speaker 1: And also for travel nurses pay to stay that high. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Eventually it'll get saturated, and that's kind of the goal
Speaker 1: of hospitals to push all of their UM permanent employees
Speaker 1: into traveling. So once that industry becomes saturated and you
Speaker 1: can decrease wages and we'd have to compete amongst each other,
Speaker 1: UM for certain jobs with certain hours that we need
Speaker 1: or whatever, we'll just be Um, it's just a race
Speaker 1: to the bottom. We're just gonna Yeah, then the employer
Speaker 1: will control the market and it's yeah. Um, and I
Speaker 1: can't imagine twenty years from now, um, trying to be
Speaker 1: a travel nurse. It's just going to be hard to
Speaker 1: compete with those younger people that are that could work
Speaker 1: harder and faster and longer than me for less money.
Speaker 1: It's not sustainable for a career. Yeah, it's it's just
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like a good way to do healthcare. Like
Speaker 1: yeah that also yeah, m hm, exactly. Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: guess the next thing I want to talk about in
Speaker 1: terms of okay, so how do you make this better?
Speaker 1: Is about Yeah, this is a very large bolt the
Speaker 1: hospital strike across multiple cities, which is really impressive thing
Speaker 1: to pull off. Was warning shalk about how how that happens. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, the pandemic really pushed a lot of nurses
Speaker 1: to want to fight for change. Um, and I think
Speaker 1: that it all started there. We all started coming together
Speaker 1: with the same issues and problems, and um, yeah finally
Speaker 1: just started organizing more. Um. All these hospitals were currently unionized,
Speaker 1: but somewhere more like involved in their union than others um,
Speaker 1: i'd say, now a lot of nurses are more involved
Speaker 1: in the union, and it's a lot of younger nurses too. Um,
Speaker 1: just because there people are finally realizing that we are
Speaker 1: the union. It's not a separate entity from us. It's
Speaker 1: something that we can control and be a part of
Speaker 1: and be able to use it to balance power. UM.
Speaker 1: So it just, yeah, it's our only way to fight um,
Speaker 1: this healthcare sector. We also want to ask about what
Speaker 1: the negotiation process has been like, because I mean five
Speaker 1: months is I mean, you know, okay like that you
Speaker 1: very rarely get fast contracts when you're dealing with bosses.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like the contract negotiation process seems to have
Speaker 1: been really bad, even by sort of like regular contract
Speaker 1: association standards. Yeah, for sure. I mean the our negotiations,
Speaker 1: we probably have negotiations like once a week, once every
Speaker 1: other week, um, and the hospital shows up with five
Speaker 1: of their like elites that just hied behind a corporate lawyer.
Speaker 1: It was just a union busting lawyer. And all they
Speaker 1: do is just gaslight and demonize this and say, well,
Speaker 1: the hospital staffing shortage is your fault because you guys
Speaker 1: are calling in sick too much, or I mean they
Speaker 1: just turn everything around to blame the nurses. It's very demoralizing. It's, um,
Speaker 1: we feel very just underappreciated, especially with everything we've gone
Speaker 1: through with the pandemic, and they've just been dismissive of
Speaker 1: what we're um, what our needs are and anything, especially
Speaker 1: like like the like the calling in sick too much
Speaker 1: is like, well, yeah, okay, maybe your nurses wouldn't be
Speaker 1: getting sick if you were making them work with no
Speaker 1: people like with ppe in a pandemic, Like Jesus Christ. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just comic all the arguments as they have,
Speaker 1: I know, and it's like we don't we can't ever
Speaker 1: get vacation that we're asking for. I mean, one of
Speaker 1: one of our proposals is just to get a two
Speaker 1: week block vacation for every nurse in the hospital guaranteed
Speaker 1: every year. Um, because we don't even get that. We
Speaker 1: we have a cap on our vaccasion hours and then
Speaker 1: we get deny our vacation constantly people calling sick because
Speaker 1: we need a day off, we need a break. Yeah,
Speaker 1: We're like yeah, yeah, like okay, Like if you have
Speaker 1: vacation nows but you can't use them, you don't actually
Speaker 1: have them like, it's not how this works exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a benefit they control. Yeah. What are the
Speaker 1: things that I've been reading about that you've all been
Speaker 1: fighting for? That It's really interesting to me because it's
Speaker 1: something I've seen in a few other struggles kind of proposed,
Speaker 1: but never like really like put in the center of
Speaker 1: the thing is talking about like all right, like giving
Speaker 1: giving workers a role in staffing decisions. Yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 1: can you talk about that because that that's really interesting
Speaker 1: to me. Yeah, absolutely so. Um, I mean currently we
Speaker 1: don't own our profession, We have no say in staffing ratios.
Speaker 1: The hospitals decide um what is safe care, and they're
Speaker 1: doing it absolutely wrong. Um. So we want to be
Speaker 1: able to take that back and control that and to
Speaker 1: say this is what we need because our patients are sicker, um,
Speaker 1: they're staying longer in the hospital, and in order to
Speaker 1: provide safer care, we you know, these need this many
Speaker 1: nurses for this many patients. Um. So what would that
Speaker 1: be on like a sort of like okay, you like
Speaker 1: you have a negotiation. You said, this is just is
Speaker 1: like the like this is just the ratio is just
Speaker 1: like a data This is an individual day to day thing. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm wondering how this would work. Yeah, right now, let's see.
Speaker 1: I know we are asking for like a committee that's
Speaker 1: made up of mean administrative staff but also nurses, but
Speaker 1: we want the nurses to be able to have the
Speaker 1: power to implement policies and change um if they think
Speaker 1: it needs to be done. Um. So, it would be
Speaker 1: like a grid review. I think it's nearly as what
Speaker 1: we're asking for, um, but can be up to quarterly
Speaker 1: if need be. Kind of just depending on what we're
Speaker 1: hearing from other employees on other units. Um So. I
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of like on a a week
Speaker 1: to week evaluation to see what's working and what's not. Um.
Speaker 1: I know the hospital's argument for that is it would
Speaker 1: take nurses away from the bedside, but in reality that
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense. In reality, it would retain staff. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well and also okay, it's like, oh no, we've we've
Speaker 1: we've taken a nurse away from the bedside for one
Speaker 1: hour to go to a committee meeting where they say
Speaker 1: we could put more nurses in, and like we want
Speaker 1: this committee like made outside of UM like that, like
Speaker 1: those nurses scheduleds and then we also want them to
Speaker 1: be paid for their time. Hospital disagrees with all of that.
Speaker 1: They don't even want to pay nurses for their time
Speaker 1: to create safe staffing ratios. It's hard. So like the
Speaker 1: people that are empowered, they're just a bunch of narcissists,
Speaker 1: that's all they are. Um, And that's the only way
Speaker 1: to remain empower is to have no empathy for your employees.
Speaker 1: So that is what we're up against. So every negotiation,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm just arguing with a two year old. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it really, and like they really seem like
Speaker 1: a kind of people who you can only actually the
Speaker 1: only language they understand is power, and like the only
Speaker 1: way you can get to invest them of anything is
Speaker 1: just like whacking them over the head with it. Which
Speaker 1: David Graper had this thing about, Um, it was it him.
Speaker 1: I think he had this thing about how like the
Speaker 1: trying to think of how he actually phrased it. It
Speaker 1: was basically like, Okay, if if if you have a
Speaker 1: lot of like if you have like a large amount
Speaker 1: of actual physical power over someone, you don't need to
Speaker 1: like use eloquent arguments at all. You can just sort
Speaker 1: of like tell them what to do and they have
Speaker 1: to do it, and like the less actual physical power
Speaker 1: you have, the more you have to sort of like
Speaker 1: use argumentation to like convince people to do things. And
Speaker 1: this this really seems like the peak of cure. A
Speaker 1: bunch of people who have been so powerful for so
Speaker 1: long they don't even like they don't even know how
Speaker 1: to make a compelling argument because I've never had to.
Speaker 1: All all they all they've ever had to do is
Speaker 1: use brute force. M h. And it like sucks trying
Speaker 1: to use like logic and reason against people who like
Speaker 1: by design don't know and don't want to know how
Speaker 1: to do this because if if they if they're ever
Speaker 1: in a position where they have to, it means that
Speaker 1: their power has been diminished. Mm hmm. Exactly. Well. And
Speaker 1: also nurses like we're natural people pleasers were like kind
Speaker 1: of a we can be a little more submissive, and
Speaker 1: we've been like that for years and we're finally standing
Speaker 1: up for ourselves. And they really don't have arguments. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like they're killing people, Like it's like
Speaker 1: they're they're killing people for money. That there's not like
Speaker 1: you know, there's not actual moral justifications here. Exactly I know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just God, what a terrible way to run a
Speaker 1: health care system, like just oh you know, and I
Speaker 1: know a lot of hospitals are getting more into like
Speaker 1: creating executive care and executive hospitals, executive clinics and which
Speaker 1: all that is is just a hospital that is just
Speaker 1: dedicated to exactly like the elites. And you would pay
Speaker 1: that hospital like a country club membership, so like to
Speaker 1: under granted year or whatever it's. They're not going to
Speaker 1: take Medicare, they're not going to take Medicaid. Um, it'll
Speaker 1: be strictly out of pocket, not insurance, out of pocket
Speaker 1: um money. And you can just get all of the
Speaker 1: care you need at that one facility. Um, it'll have
Speaker 1: all specialties. You can see them same day, you can
Speaker 1: text your doctor. It's just health care that's just on
Speaker 1: demand and readily available for those people that can pay it.
Speaker 1: I know, I mean what I Meanwhile, everyone else is
Speaker 1: like waiting seventeen hours with like a hole in them
Speaker 1: in a hallway exactly like fair View is one of
Speaker 1: the hospital chains in our um in Minnesota, and they're
Speaker 1: creating a thousand bed hospital for the ultra elite. They're
Speaker 1: going to be doing that soon. And then they're also
Speaker 1: bargaining with the nurses and saying that they don't have
Speaker 1: money to pay them raises, they don't have money to
Speaker 1: give them family leave, they don't have money to um
Speaker 1: create better staffing models, you know. And one of the
Speaker 1: things I keep hearing about this is they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: like the rich hospitals will subsidize the ones that don't
Speaker 1: make money. It's like, no, they won't, Like you're just
Speaker 1: gonna you're just going to keep all of that money
Speaker 1: and continue not funding the poorer hospitals, Like you won't
Speaker 1: you already do this. You can't actually fool anyone who
Speaker 1: has a bit more than two seconds like looking at
Speaker 1: this works exactly. I know. I know they're going to
Speaker 1: prioritize those executive hospitals and just fuddle all their money
Speaker 1: and resources that direction. It'll for sure be non union
Speaker 1: and they will push so much non union propaganda athletes too.
Speaker 1: M Yeah, it sucks. Suck it, it does suck, I know,
Speaker 1: and just a lot of people don't know about it.
Speaker 1: It's scary what we're what we're heading towards, and that's
Speaker 1: that's that's what we're fighting for, our fighting against and
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I will say like I do
Speaker 1: feel like like a lot of the I don't know,
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about this a lot, with like what
Speaker 1: happened in and like why that kind of thing happens,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of like, Okay, there is
Speaker 1: any stent to which people sort of don't care about violenceness,
Speaker 1: an extent to which people like are able to sort
Speaker 1: of like rationalize it. But but I think there is
Speaker 1: an extent to which like the average person on the
Speaker 1: street has no idea this is happening until there's like
Speaker 1: sitting in a hospital room, and then they don't understand
Speaker 1: why it's happening, and so I think, yeah, like I
Speaker 1: don't like this. This is not an acceptable state of affairs.
Speaker 1: And I think I don't know, like the when people
Speaker 1: start to fight back, and then when people like actually
Speaker 1: know about what is happening, I think it's gonna be
Speaker 1: like hopefully will become harder and harder for them to
Speaker 1: do this stuff, because you know, hey, like yeah, people
Speaker 1: are literally dying and being like previously injured because the
Speaker 1: hospital refuses to pay more. Exactly, No, they just the
Speaker 1: hospitals just push that propaganda that they're underfunded and they
Speaker 1: can't afford stand, they can't afford this, and there's a
Speaker 1: nursing shortage and there's nothing they can do about it.
Speaker 1: And it's actually there's not a nursing shortage at all.
Speaker 1: There's a shortage and nurses that want to deal with
Speaker 1: this ship. Yeah, they're just leaving the bedside for better jobs.
Speaker 1: I think the thing I want to sort of start
Speaker 1: closing on is about Okay, like that there there is
Speaker 1: some negotiation going on about pay raises because hey, guess
Speaker 1: what inflation is happening, etcetera, etcetera. But like the extent
Speaker 1: to which the negotiations aren't about like a aren't about
Speaker 1: pay because this is something we've been seeing. This is
Speaker 1: a this is a thing with the with the rail
Speaker 1: strike that's temporarily been averted. This is the thing there
Speaker 1: has been a thing in a lot of places. It's
Speaker 1: been a thing that's been dragging people out of the
Speaker 1: workplace just everywhere. Is that, Yeah, Like it's like this
Speaker 1: strike isn't really like if I think it's like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, Okay, to tell me if this is wrong.
Speaker 1: I don't think the strike would have happened if it
Speaker 1: had just been people not getting paid enough. Like I
Speaker 1: I think if there was adequate staffing, and I think
Speaker 1: if there was, like if people weren't paying for to
Speaker 1: take more patients, like there wouldn't be a strike right now,
Speaker 1: or there wouldn't have been a strike. Yeah. Possibly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, I think, Um, we're definitely not paid our worth.
Speaker 1: But also that's not all we want. There's definitely way
Speaker 1: more to it. Um Yeah, it's um, we just we
Speaker 1: want to reclaim our profession. Yeah. Like it seems like
Speaker 1: it really seems like they're like this the stuff that's happening,
Speaker 1: and I think sort of broadly like is like it's
Speaker 1: not just sort of about conversation. It's about the fact
Speaker 1: that for I mean, my entire lifetime for like twenty
Speaker 1: five years, but like before that, like employers have had
Speaker 1: almost limited power and they've used are almost limited power
Speaker 1: to just make everyone's lives absolutely living hell. And they've
Speaker 1: they've used it to sort of like just to force
Speaker 1: to force people to work hours that are like unbelievable,
Speaker 1: to force people to like you know, like like for
Speaker 1: force people to stand there with like like cans so
Speaker 1: they can pee into while they're still on an assembly
Speaker 1: line force people just like this like unbelievably just sort
Speaker 1: of horrible and degrading stuff. That's like it's like, no,
Speaker 1: you can't actually just fix this with higher wages. You
Speaker 1: actually have to change, like something actually has to change
Speaker 1: about how the workplace works, because otherwise people are just
Speaker 1: going to stop. Exactly yeah, exactly, um yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: One of our proposals, we want to work a max
Speaker 1: of three twelve hours shifts in a row because right
Speaker 1: now our contract says we can't work more than seven
Speaker 1: twelve hours shifts in a row, and we obviously that
Speaker 1: is way too much and that's something that would mean
Speaker 1: even even three is like like isn't really Like every
Speaker 1: single time I read one of these things, it's like okay,
Speaker 1: like hey, I like, yeah, okay, we we we we
Speaker 1: want for only one of our fingers to be cut
Speaker 1: off per shift instead of four. And it's like this
Speaker 1: is like oh god, It's like the demands are incredibly
Speaker 1: reasonable considering being asked to do, Like Jesus, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: we want the hospitals to have six months of PPE
Speaker 1: on hand at all times. They've already declined that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh who who who needs PPE? Like
Speaker 1: really everyone in the splice's like, oh, who who needs
Speaker 1: to have? Who who needs to have like stories of
Speaker 1: critical spare parts? No one this this will never come
Speaker 1: back to haunts. We will never be in any position
Speaker 1: where we said you don't have the spirit parts. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, yeah I know. Um, we have a pandemic
Speaker 1: proposal we want, um, we want to pass and that's
Speaker 1: just to give the nurses the power to decide, um
Speaker 1: what we need when another pandemic hits. Um to provide
Speaker 1: SafeCare and like safety for ourselves. Um. Yeah, the hospitals
Speaker 1: didn't include us on any decisions during the pandemic. It
Speaker 1: was yeah, we were just used and abused. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: um we had to use our own sick time and
Speaker 1: vacation if we were exposed or if we had quarantines
Speaker 1: or we're nursed with COVID Yeah, which also I wouldn't like.
Speaker 1: But did you get COVID? What is happening? Um? I
Speaker 1: only had it once that I know of. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean okay, oldly had it once. Is like like, I
Speaker 1: don't know anyone who worked as a nurse who didn't
Speaker 1: get COVID at least once, and most of them got
Speaker 1: it at least twice. Oh yeah, just god, I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's just so bleak, like I know, and it just
Speaker 1: depended on like your patient population. I'm in surgery, so
Speaker 1: I'm a little more like guarded from that um COVID population.
Speaker 1: You know, we only did surgery if if UM they
Speaker 1: really needed it done and if they were positive for COVID,
Speaker 1: so we kind of got to pick and choose a
Speaker 1: little bit. UM. But other nurses obviously they could not
Speaker 1: avoid COVID. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't. It's just God, like,
Speaker 1: I can't just go like just this is just the
Speaker 1: worst possible way you can run a medical system. And
Speaker 1: it's just I know, and I know, like I know
Speaker 1: in UM. Let see, Sanford is another big hospital joint
Speaker 1: giant that's like in South Dakota, North Dakota, and I'm
Speaker 1: from South Dakota, so that's kind of all like really
Speaker 1: hits home for me. UM is they're hiring seven foreign
Speaker 1: nurses like from Venezuela, Mexico wherever. Um as like they're
Speaker 1: pretty much using them as travel nurses, UM just to
Speaker 1: avoid actual travel nurses here. UM. They will bring them
Speaker 1: here UM by and they'll sign like a three year
Speaker 1: contract um, the hospital will provide housing for them and
Speaker 1: and they will drop wages significantly. In the nursing world,
Speaker 1: especially in South Dakota and North Dakota, they're definitely not
Speaker 1: going to be paid their worth. I know they're going
Speaker 1: to be exploited more than we are. I had family
Speaker 1: like the actually did the ante calls talking about who
Speaker 1: are doctors, Like we're in North Dakota for a bit,
Speaker 1: and they were just like this is the worst, and
Speaker 1: they like they left for like they left for a
Speaker 1: vast improvement and being in a hospital in Nebraska, which
Speaker 1: is like yeah. And I also like I want to
Speaker 1: talk about this a little bit because this is like
Speaker 1: a this is interesting what the Philippines too, where like
Speaker 1: there's there's like there are a whole industries of like
Speaker 1: basically training people and then shipping them to the US
Speaker 1: so they can be like just horribly exploited. Um. And
Speaker 1: then that's been like one of the things that's been
Speaker 1: like I don't know, like bolstering the prophets of the
Speaker 1: medical sector for a long time is the usually just
Speaker 1: like import people and exploit them. Yeah, and like the
Speaker 1: fact that they're like, oh god, this is some like
Speaker 1: the the fact that these people are gonna be like
Speaker 1: living in like houses that are owned by their bosses.
Speaker 1: Is some real like yeah gilded age ship. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean well, I mean the thing I think it most
Speaker 1: like this is this is like standard practice in China,
Speaker 1: for example, and it's a disaster. Like I like, I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know if people have ever actually seen
Speaker 1: pictures of what the inside of these dormitories look like,
Speaker 1: but like it is like these are you get a
Speaker 1: room that is like smaller than the college dorm room
Speaker 1: that doesn't have air conditioning that like I don't know,
Speaker 1: I I we talked about on this show, like the
Speaker 1: which we talked about a worker like a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago who like died from the heat wave because
Speaker 1: when he came home, I mean, he people working a
Speaker 1: bunch of shifts and he had to work, like he
Speaker 1: had to work a shift in like a hundred and
Speaker 1: four degrees like loading stuff onto a train, and he
Speaker 1: came back home and there was no air conditioning and
Speaker 1: he's in this tunty apartment. He died in his bed
Speaker 1: because you know, it was it was too hot, and
Speaker 1: like like this is the kind of stuff that happens,
Speaker 1: especially when you have, like like when when when you're
Speaker 1: sleeping in corporate dormitories and we're sleeping in a place
Speaker 1: that like your boss owns, Like this is the ship
Speaker 1: that happens, and it's really really bleak. And I hope
Speaker 1: these people are able to unionize and like fight their bosses,
Speaker 1: but like, yeah, I don't know it. Yeah, well, I
Speaker 1: mean fear of being exiled. I highly doubt they're going
Speaker 1: to be able to unionize. Yeah, because yeah, because I
Speaker 1: mean I say everything, like like the way the visa
Speaker 1: process works, right, Like it's really easy to like if
Speaker 1: someone's here to work visa and then suddenly you're like, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: I want to unize, is like, well, nope, screw you.
Speaker 1: You don't have a job anymore. We're gonna get you deported. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: which I mean, I guess it's it's it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's another one of those things where like
Speaker 1: like we all of the different sort of disparate like
Speaker 1: fights people are having our acted like like this, this
Speaker 1: this wouldn't be happening, like if we didn't have the
Speaker 1: sort of border regime that we have right now, Like okay,
Speaker 1: if firmigration system wasn't just like you know, and like
Speaker 1: and it just like if it wasn't just like a
Speaker 1: giant like torture machine for millions of people, the stuff
Speaker 1: wouldn't be happening if you weren't in this sort of
Speaker 1: moments of like you know, if you if you weren't
Speaker 1: at a moment where the power of unions has been
Speaker 1: collapsing for decades, Like if you weren't and if you
Speaker 1: weren't in a place where like I mean even even
Speaker 1: even sort of like on on on the level of
Speaker 1: Obama going like we're not gonna like we're gonna make
Speaker 1: our healthcare system worse because it will cost insurance jobs
Speaker 1: if you make it any better. Like it's just like
Speaker 1: uh yeah, like like I feel like I feel like
Speaker 1: the medical sector is like like people do. Working in
Speaker 1: healthcare is like it's one of these places where just
Speaker 1: like every possible it it's kind of it's kind of
Speaker 1: like prisons where it's like everything that's gone wrong in
Speaker 1: our society just like gets focused into like one nexus
Speaker 1: point and it's the point where people have to go
Speaker 1: where they die, I know. And the only thing that's
Speaker 1: holding hospitals accountable are unions. In this country. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: there was no unions, the wages would be much lower.
Speaker 1: And I don't even know where healthcare would be right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Not good. I mean like I can't
Speaker 1: I can keep going back to China because it's like
Speaker 1: that's like the other healthcare system as a disaster that
Speaker 1: like I have family and it's like, well, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess the thing that's been happening in the U
Speaker 1: S too, of like the increasing violence you can staff,
Speaker 1: but like China has a huge, a huge problem with
Speaker 1: basically riots breaking out because people like someone's family member
Speaker 1: dies because their their care was really bad, and so
Speaker 1: they'll just be like a riot and people will go
Speaker 1: tack the doctors. It's like yeah, and it's like okay,
Speaker 1: like I get why they're doing this, but it's like
Speaker 1: it sucks, and this is this is a huge problem
Speaker 1: they've had with with retention because their numbers are like
Speaker 1: they're they're like their staff to patient ratios are unreal
Speaker 1: awful and yeah, and like you know like that that
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff makes health care systems fall apart absolutely. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of like they've been doing that here.
Speaker 1: I mean, hospitals have been demonizing nurses instead of like
Speaker 1: actually saying that they do have institutional failures and it's
Speaker 1: their faults and we're only as strong as like the
Speaker 1: safety protocols and policies that are in place. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: like I mean, like the best nurse in the world
Speaker 1: can't be three nurses, Like yeah, it's actually yeah yeah
Speaker 1: and yeah. So if they kind of do this for
Speaker 1: a nursing deal, um, I mean South Dakota and at
Speaker 1: Dakota their right to work states, so they it's almost
Speaker 1: impossible to unionize. You can, but it's it takes a
Speaker 1: lot of work. Uh, but when most your staff is
Speaker 1: already travelers, like I was told by another nurse, like
Speaker 1: in North Dakota, Sanford their staff is travelers, Well, how
Speaker 1: the help can you even attempt to unionize? And that's
Speaker 1: that's the goal of hospitals is just to create so
Speaker 1: much turnover where yeah, I mean it's just yes, just
Speaker 1: turning hospitals into Amazon, which the system meditoriously works great,
Speaker 1: Like it's exactly, and travelers m are less likely to
Speaker 1: speak up because they're just afraid of their contract being
Speaker 1: canceled or they're going to be blacklisted, and blacklisted just
Speaker 1: means like there's a um common website that all hospitals
Speaker 1: will go on just to look at travel nurses that
Speaker 1: are recommended, um not to call all or not to
Speaker 1: give a contract to Jesus Yeah, exactly so, and you
Speaker 1: can blacklist a nurse for any reason, um yeah, and
Speaker 1: the reasons they're not disclosed. It just says do not
Speaker 1: call next to that name. Well, that completely ruins their
Speaker 1: travel career. Yeah, it's like it's amazing. It's so formalized.
Speaker 1: Like I know people have been blacklisted from other professions,
Speaker 1: but it was like very like it was kind of
Speaker 1: an under the table thing. This is just like not
Speaker 1: a not We're we were literally going to put your
Speaker 1: name on a list that everyone just has, Like oh god,
Speaker 1: yeah exactly. So if there is you know, safety issues
Speaker 1: at a hospital, those nurses are less likely to speak
Speaker 1: up and they're less likely to even you know, leave
Speaker 1: their contract because they're afraid of retaliation like that. It
Speaker 1: just incentivizes just a terrible care. Yeah okay, we we Well,
Speaker 1: we have now spent an enormous amount of time talking
Speaker 1: about how unbelievably messed up this whole system is. Um
Speaker 1: what can people do to a help this strike and
Speaker 1: be like, will help with contract negotiations and be like,
Speaker 1: just in general, try to fight for better health care
Speaker 1: for people. I know I've been asked that a lot too. UM.
Speaker 1: We do have a website with um M and a
Speaker 1: Minnesota nursing association where we do like to have people
Speaker 1: share their stories about surprise bills or firsthand experiences with understaffing, UM,
Speaker 1: et cetera. UM, and that's something like we've just been
Speaker 1: kind of collecting stories, UM, just so we can kind
Speaker 1: of keep exposing the corruption. UM. Also, donating to our
Speaker 1: strike fund is always much appreciated. Yeah, yeah, we can
Speaker 1: it will put it, put a link to that in
Speaker 1: the description. Yeah, that's how you create change, just this
Speaker 1: public pressure. Yeah. Do you do you have anywhere else
Speaker 1: anything else that you want to say? I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I feel like I covered a lot. UM. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to bring awareness to this topic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for bringing on the show. I'm
Speaker 1: for talking to us about this because yeah, this is
Speaker 1: definitely something that people need to hear, and I'm really
Speaker 1: glad you're able to join us. Thank you for having
Speaker 1: me appreciate it. Yeah, this has been nickuld Happen Here,
Speaker 1: a podcast by cool Zone Media and I Guess also
Speaker 1: my Heart. Uh yeah. You can find us in the
Speaker 1: usual places. Uh yeah. Make make the world a better
Speaker 1: place for nurses and a worse place for hospital executives. Yes,
Speaker 1: it could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: cool zone Media dot com. Check us out on the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to podcasts. You can find sources for It could Happen Here,
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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.