12,000 Nurses prepare for Thursday strike (Talks broke off Friday)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4500

By Barb Kucera, Workday editor
6 June 2010
ST. PAUL - Registered Nurse Monica Proulx says she is ready to strike to protect the profession she loves.
With no bargaining scheduled, it seems increasingly likely that members of the Minnesota Nurses Association will conduct a one-day strike Thursday against 14 Twin Cities hospitals.

Proulx said she and the 12,000 nurses who may participate in the walkout have no choice.

“I quit nursing for a while because I was frustrated because I couldn’t give the care I needed to the patients,” said Proulx, who has 25 years’ experience and is currently employed in the surgery unit at Unity Hospital.

“There are patients who don’t want to bother you because they see how busy you are – and they’re in there for care!” she said. MNA would like to set nurse-patient ratios as part of the contract, a move the hospitals are resisting.

“I’m ready for a strike,” Proulx said. “I hope it really drives home the point.”


Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association assemble strike signs at union headquarters.

The work stoppage will be the largest nursing-related strike in U.S. history in terms of the number of nurses involved. Previously, the largest strike in history occurred when more than 6,000 Twin Cities nurses walked off the job for 38 days in 1984 before coming to an agreement with area hospitals.

FULL story at link.

[Earth Bound Misfit]

1. K n R for nurses. n/t

[AnneD]

2. And the trashing of Nurses will begin in 5, 4 ,3

2,1.
They can announce it, they give hospitals time to prepare, it will last but one day, and I know that there will be Nurses that will cross the lines in true emergencies with the blessing of Nurses on the picket line. But despite all this, they will be trashed for daring to demand better for patients and themselves.