The Minnesota Nurses Association is furious about allegedly unethical behavior by the Star Tribune.
With a Monday vote on an open-ended strike looming, a union spokesman vows to call out the Strib and other media outlets via the MNA’s blog and social networks — and also withhold information from the offenders while giving scoops to rivals.
The latest flashpoint is a Strib story that includes quotes from what the MNA says was a closed-to-the-press union membership meeting Wednesday. The piece, written by Josephine Marcotty and Chen May Yee, includes passages such as:
One nurse stood up and said, “I’m a young nurse and I talk to a lot of young nurses.” She said she was worried that some would cross the picket line.
MNA spokesman John Nemo says the media organizations were informed via press release that the meeting was closed.
“We have made every rank-and-file member available to the press,” he says. “I’m a former AP reporter, and I knew reporters would talk to nurses leaving the meeting. But [the meeting] was a place for them to speak up without fear of being in the newspaper. Sneaking into a meeting is a low-ball, low-class thing. Why don’t they sneak into the hospital CEOs' meeting?”
Via email, Marcotty gave this statement:
“I went to the nurses meeting at Fairview about 8:30 a.m., which is when the meeting was supposed to end. I stepped into the room to see if the meeting was still going on. (There were no windows.) I stayed for a few minutes, long enough to hear the two comments I used. I left and waited outside to talk to nurses. I introduced myself as a Star Tribune reporter to everyone I talked to. Only one nurse declined to speak with me.”
A competitor, WCCO reporter Esme Murphy, says she clearly understood the nurses’ meeting was closed-door, and wouldn’t have tried to crash it.
“I feel like the situation for nurses is very difficult; they are facing tough decisions about going on strike in a tough economy,” Murphy says. “A lot of these nurses are struggling. I feel people have a right to have private meetings without reporters present.”
In any event, Nemo vows payback. “I told the Strib I’m cutting them out of the scoops. On Monday, they’ll have to wait for the strike vote. I’m giving it to [Pioneer Press reporter] Jeremy Olson first.”
He makes even that sound charitable: “We don’t need the mainstream media to tell our story. We built our whole campaign around social networking — 10,000 fans on Facebook, and MNAblog.com gets 8-10,000 hits a day. It’s not 1988 any more. ”
Not exactly winning friends and influencing coverage, at least with those on the outs, I observed.
“With reporters that do a shitty job?” Nemo responded. “We have people begging us for stories. Do other entities play ball with every single reporter? Does Pawlenty return calls from Doug Grow? We’re not asking for biased coverage, we’re asking for fair coverage. Maybe it’s p.r. suicide to pick a fight with the state’s biggest newspaper, but how could it get any worse?”
Laying out the favorites
The spokesman — whose media career also included stints with the Arizona Republic and Christian station KTIS in the Twin Cities — in unafraid to lay out his full media hierarchy.
On the TV side, channels “4 and 9 have done fair and balanced stories, 11 hasn’t, and 5 is kind of clueless.”
Meanwhile, MPR earns Nemo’s praise, and “Olson, despite the Pioneer Press editorial that ripped us, is kicking [the Strib’s] butts up down and sideways — slaughtering them.”
Nemo admits having a beef with the Minneapolis paper before the latest dust-up. He criticizes the Strib for including pushback from national academics to some of the nurses’ fundamental staffing complaints.
“They’re doing what the Strib likes to do, the navel-gazing story,” Nemo says. “Let’s discuss the nursing flow at bedsides with someone at Vanderbilt. When I was in journalism at St. Thomas, some of the worst teachers were academics, and the best were practitioners.
“We’re asking them to cover the story: Is it true what the hospitals are saying, are they staffed properly? Instead, they’re running the hospitals’ points and not telling the story.”
Says Star Tribune health team editor Dave Hage, “[T]his has been a contentious story from the beginning, and both sides have tried vigorously to influence our coverage. From the beginning we have worked hard to step beyond their perspectives and do our job: to serve our readers and the broader public interest.”
As for the complaint that Strib reporters don’t go into management’s lair, Hage notes, “Our reporters went inside North Memorial Hospital, Abbott Northwestern and United Hospital last week — uninvited by management — and produced valuable reporting that showed the effects of the strike and the events that unfolded as nurses tried to return to work. Our reporters identified themselves as journalists and left when asked.”
Bearing down on KARE
The Strib isn’t the only organization experiencing a Nemo depth charge; on MNAblog.com, he has publicly blasted KARE11 reporter Scott Goldberg for running two stories on whether hospitals could fire striking nurses. Nemo — noting no such threat has been made — believes the scenario is extremely unlikely. “Monkeys could also fly out of my rear end as I type this,” he wrote on the MNA blog.
Goldberg is unbowed. He says that as nurses ponder a strike vote, they’ve told him they’re unconcerned about losing their job because federal officials will uphold the union’s claim of unfair labor practices, or ULP.
“The National Labor Relations Board won’t make that determination for weeks and months,” Goldberg says. “So [nurses] are heading into a vote without knowing whether their jobs are protected on the picket line.”
MNA leadership, Goldberg adds, “thinks it’s ULP because they’re calling it ULP. They think the only fair coverage of this strike is supporting their talking points.”
Says Nemo, “He told me he thinks the union is lying to members, and I just said there’s nothing further from the truth. Look at the social networking.”
Indeed, a couple of comments accompanying Nemo’s KARE blast strongly question the union’s confidence the ULP issue. Still, the issue might not have gained prominence but for KARE's reporting.
Goldberg says never claimed the MNA was lying, but told Nemo the union was "misleading members" about the certainty of the ULP.
As to the larger picture, he says that the MNA may feel bigger stories lie elsewhere, but that doesn’t account for a media organization’s news judgment. “We’re always looking for angles on a story we’ve been covering for days,” he says. “We’re going to challenge things we don’t think are right. It’s really simple stuff they don’t understand.”
Unlike WCCO’s Murphy, Goldberg says he wasn’t aware Wednesday’s meeting was closed to the press, even though he didn’t try to get into it.
Still, despite Nemo’s blasts, Goldberg corroborates Nemo’s statement that the MNA hasn’t put up barriers to talking with members outside of meetings. Nevertheless, the KARE11 reporter worries that MNA spokesman’s tough talk may get in the way of complete coverage. “After Nemo’s blog and anger at our reporting, it might get more difficult.”
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Comments (40)
I kind of agree with the union rep. The Strib coverage has been pretty one sided, against the nurses union. I remember reading the story he cites, where they included some quotes from some random nursing professor on the East Coast, who argued that nurse/patient ratios were harmful to hospitals, as well as the local hospital spokesperson. Not really a fair piece, I thought at the time.
Why do I get the feeling that Nemo thinks he's some sort of media genius ?
The hospitals have a better PR machine---with the flaw of saying the same thing over and over. Nemo isn't as polished as Ms Whats-her-name is.
That said, simply putting up signs that say "closed meeting" in BIG letters might have solved one of the problems.
If it had been me, I would have noticed Esme standing outside of the meeting doors and not gone in. DOH.
Nemo should also keep half of what he says to himself. Announcing that you're gonna play favorites is very very immature, lacking experience and tolerance. Perhaps, he's taking lessons from McClung.
This is a very stressful time. the PR person shouldn't be the story, but should see to it that the story is accurate. The opposing side is going to sit back and let the MNA spokeperson have his meltdown. Many of these things are purposely negotiated in the media; with one side having this kind of tantrum out in front of the media, won't bode well for the behind-the-scenes, stuff.
Thanks for writing about this, David.
One remark stands out: Goldberg commented, "We’re going to challenge things we don’t think are right. It’s really simple stuff they don’t understand." He implies that union members or leadership can't understand "simple stuff," whatever that is (journalistic principles?). He seems to lack respect for one of the groups of people he's covering for his story. If he doesn't like the criticism, how about responding on its merit, not just implying people are stupid? Speaking of not winning friends...
wow. 12,000-member union has 10,000 Facebook fans. Not as impressive as Mr. Nemo seems to think.
Kristy raises a good point: in a situation like this where the PR person becomes the news instead of the cause, it's not a good sign. I would add that if the reporter was able to simply enter the room without being challenged and the union wanted the meeting to be "closed," why on earth did they not have a couple of members outside controlling who entered?
If I were a MNA member, I'd be sending Goldberg a gift certificate to a nice restaurant. His probing will allow nurses to make an informed decision that may well involve the permanent loss of their jobs.
We’re used to seeing labor unions using innocent bystanders to further their power plays (think NEA and kids), but this is the first documented evidence I’ve seen that they use their own membership as cannon fodder.
Just finished looking through both the Strib and Pioneer Press archives to read their nursing strike coverage. I don't see anything notably better about Olson's coverage compared to the Strib reporters'. One difference, however is that Olson tends to quote Nemo a lot more often than Marcotty, Lerner and Chen. Maybe that's just a coincidence, though.
Also: "Elitist out-of-touch East Coast professors are trying to tell Minnesotans what to do!" Nemo sounds like Michele Bachmann.
So Marcotty is taking heat for doing some actual journalism work? Times have really changed.
Nemo is ticked because he cannot control the message. Limiting where the message is communicated won't fix that. If Nemo limits who gets information, the other media outlets should report that.
The nurses would be well served to dismiss Nemo now.
I think the Strib reporters were out of line using those quotes. The fact that they were trying to find out whether or not the meeting was over proves they knew it was supposed to be a closed meeting, otherwise they wouldn't have been waiting for it to be over. They violated a trust. It's not the biggest betrayal in history but the nurses are entitled to react. It's disingenuous to compare walking into a meeting you know is supposed to be closed and pulling quotes to attending management meetings by invitation. When they saw the meeting was still in progress they should have left. Of course I'm giving them a lot of latitude in the first place for claiming they had to go into the room to find out if the meeting was still in progress. One suspects they could've simply asked someone outside. At any rate, you can take advantage of lax security if you want, but there will be consequences.
Nemo is getting paid over $110,000 a year for this kind of public meltdown? It's ironic that the MNA cries about nurses being under-paid and under-appreciated professionals; then, it goes out and hires this over-paid, unprofessional PR flack as their spokesman. Well, thank you, MNA! For those of us who know that your negotiating stance with the hospitals is misguided, uninformed and destructive, John Nemo is the perfect representative of your labor union. The only things he has done are to design some cute shirts and ponchos for the MNA's June 10 pep fest/photo op; create a Facebook "echo chamber" for 10,000 of its misled, uninformed union members; and embarrass himself in print and on TV.
//Well, thank you, MNA! For those of us who know that your negotiating stance with the hospitals is misguided, uninformed and destructive,
And how do you know this Bo?
You may want to mention both news organizations - StarTribune and KARE 11- won Edward R. Murrow Awards:
http://www.startribune.com/local/96514989.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP...
The national press seems to disagree with the nurses union as to the quality of their journalism.
I know it because I spent my whole career in health care and am well-acquainted with the nurse-patient ratio demand that MNA is using in order to garner public support and whip its members into a feeding frenzy. Its position on the matter is misguided, unfounded by research and beyond the scope of a multi-hospital, multi-employer labor contract in any event. In addition, MNA is on very, very shaky ground when it claims the hospitals have engaged in unfair labor practices . . . but it is manipulating the nurses into a strike authorization vote that may very well result in their permanent replacement. The MNA is playing a very high-stakes game to further the National Nurses United national agenda and to the detriment of the nurses and hospital facilities in the Twin Cities.
I have not dog in this fight but I find it interesting Star Tribune reporters fail to identify themselves as union members in the stories they write. Conversely, they always tell readers when newspaper owners may have a conflict of interest.
One would think that a large organization such as the MNA would want to put a professional face on their effort. This guy has turned it into a PR disaster for them. Reading the commentary on the news story, the MNA now has neither the confidence of the public, or worse yet, a large portion of its membership.
And what's with Esme Murphy; wasn't she hired to do a job?
Finally, with that potty mouth, how did Nemo work at Christian radio station KTIS?
Karl--
Well, to be fair, The Strib won the Murrow for the website. Which doesn't really factor in here (although it isn't a negative, either).
“We don’t need the mainstream media to tell our story. We built our whole campaign around social networking — 10,000 fans on Facebook, and MNAblog.com gets 8-10,000 hits a day. It’s not 1988 any more. ”
Well said, in a way. Nemo is correct that Facebook and MNAblog communicate information — as Nemo says "our story."
The mainstream media rather, I hope, is more than a one-sided echo and is putting together the larger story.
Maybe it's just me, but I would love to see this comment thread deconstructed by each commenter's political and business affiliations. In all candor I don't see a single comment in response to your article that reads like it comes from a genuinely objective, non-involved party.
I have never in my life seen an objective article about a strike. Never. Newspapers are businesses. They report on these things in their Business pages. I know of no newspaper that has any Labor pages, MinnPost included.
Based on the reporting thus far, there's no way for anyone to claim they can assess the accuracy of the union's claim that this is about nurse-to-patient ratios. Why doesn't MinnPost scoop the rest of the local media and put together exactly such a story?
Factcheck the union, and show us your notes.
Re: comment 12. So once an organization wins an award, all of it's activities (including those going forward) become unassailable? How long do you propose to give all of their work the lable of "quality journalism" based on a past award?
My kid was well behaved yesterday. Today he may not be- should I argue that because he was judged to be well-behaved in the past, he couldn't possibly be behaving poorly now? Seems sort of silly.
I'm getting so sick of this story. Sick of the union, sick of hospitals. It's not a story when any one person walks in to their boss' office and asks for a raise. Not a story when the boss says no, or the employee leaves for a more lucrative opportunity somewhere else. That's how people advance in the world - they hop around to new opportunities. So, they can strike. So, the hospitals can bring in scabs. So, I still don't care.
I want to say I'm deeply sorry for the comments I made. I am ashamed of myself and embarrassed for such unprofessional and inappropriate behavior when talking about some Twin Cities reporters and outlets. I feel horrible about it.
David's call caught me at the worst possible time. I've been working 15-18 hours a day straight for 6 weeks and am in the middle of the most intense, emotional and stressful story I've ever been a part of. I am a passionate, emotional and fiery person and sometimes have a hard time stepping back from a situation and not taking things personally.
When I was talking to David I was at a park with our 3 little boys and not in work/professional mode. I was exhausted and fresh off some heated exchanges with reporters over coverage, and I essentially just cut open a vein and melted down. Not my proudest moment.
In particular I want to apologize to Channel 5 and did so privately after this story came out when Tom Hauser thankfully called me out on my inaccurate and untrue remarks. They have done a very good and fair job covering this story. Scott Goldberg is also a class act and I want to apologize to him and KARE 11 for my remarks. Scott and I talked on the phone and agreed to disagree on some issues and I apologized for my lack of professionalism and ranting online.
Dave Hage and I have engaged in some heated conversations about the Strib's coverage and I have not been as professional as I need to be when disagreeing with him and his team of reporters. I'm sorry for that, and we can agree to disagree as professionals about their work and coverage.
I have no excuse for my behavior and I feel horrible about it. That's not the kind of person or professional I want to be and I hope those reporters who have worked with me in the past and those of you who know me realize this is not an accurate reality of who I am as a person or how I normally am. I think any reporter or PR person can relate to being in the middle of a storm like this and just losing it once in a while. My advice is make sure you're not talking to David Brauer when it happens!
Bo Shesler, comment #13 has it absolutely accurate. It's worth a re-read!!!!! This is the real world.
What about other media? Weekly newspapers?
//I know it because I spent my whole career in health care and am well-acquainted with the nurse-patient ratio demand that MNA is using in order to garner public support...
I notice you don't say what you actually do in the health care field Bo. I'm also acquainted with the staffing ratios issues, I used to work on psych unit in one of the major hospitals and I've seen first hand the effects of staffing cuts. We're killing 90,000 patients a year with medical errors, if you think that has nothing with staffing ratios then whatever it is you do in the health care field, is not patient care. Patient care staff are in a tough spot, you see crap happen every day but you're not free to discuss it because of patient confidentiality or other disclosure rules that govern your employment. The oversight agencies like Joint Commission are completely captured by the industry so reporting incidents usually goes nowhere, and internal audits a joke.
My problem with MNA is simply that as legitimate as the issues they raise may be, we only hear about this stuff when the contract runs out. I understand the double bind, on one hand you don't want to erode confidence in nursing, but on the other nursing errors are increasing due to staff and training issues.
//In addition, MNA is on very, very shaky ground when it claims the hospitals have engaged in unfair labor practices . . .
I have no doubt the hospitals are engaged in serial violations of labor law. I've seen it myself when we tried to organize a union. Those violations flowed out of management as naturally as sunlight. The problem and concern is not the violations themselves but whether or not the labor board will recognize them and rule accordingly. We have one of the most hostile labor rights oversight systems in the world. Our laws are tilted towards companies, and although Obama's appointments are more labor friendly, it can still be hit or miss. And it can take months or years to get a ruling that won't remedy the situation anyways. By then the damage is done.
RN's should be concerned about NLRB rulings, but not because there have been no violations, you just can't guarantee a ruling in your favor no matter out egregious the violation may be.
In other countries like Canada and Europe companies can't replace strikers during a strike, period. They have to negotiate and they recognize the union. In this country there are loopholes for the loopholes, Walmart is the best example. They opened a store in Canada the was unionized in a matter of months and they closed the store. In this country they've been fending off a union for decades.
Mark,
I'm not interested in reporting that looks objective, I just want my reporting to be accurate, and journalists should conduct themselves with integrity.
Mr. Nemo;
I don't agree with your labor stand, the nurses or the MNA, but even I agree that the STrib is TCH-leaning. That being the case, you, as much as anyone, should know that the media is a business for the thick-skinned and emotions need to be left on the parenthetical playing field.
Was the STrib reporter wrong for being in the meeting? Probably. Was she wrong for quoting "off the record" statements? Absolutely ... to the point of dismissal (in my eyes).
Anyhow, in my opinion, your apology was an unnecessary, but classy thing to do. Hopefully, the local media will learn something from this.
Bust all the unions. There was a time and a place for them but they have long since worn out their welcome. With all the attorneys and employment laws the "working people" are pretty well protected. Unions have become a political machine that, more often than not, work against the interests of their members. I would caution anyone thinking of walking away from a job in this economy to talk to a former Northwest Airlines mechanic and see how it worked out for them. Maybe talk to an air traffic controller from the mid 80's, the union really took care of them too. Actually, I hope that the nurses do walk away from their jobs. I have a friend who is a nurse and is looking for employment. She seems to understand the simple concept that feeding her kids is more important than bowing to the demands of the union. Most importantly, if she finds herself working for someone that doesn't treat her right she finds another job and moves on.
I agree with post # 13, it is absolutely accurate. The nurses union has completely failed them and is feeding them lies and putting them under extreme pressure for striking. They keep talking about their work conditions are like slavery and that the floating that the twin cities hospitals want them to do is like having a plumber re-do the electrical in your house. The one thing that they FAIL to mention is that it has been in place for quite a while now at Abbott Northwestern hospital and it works. A lot of the nurses seem to be pressured by the union to strike or else. Unions had their place back in the 1920's, but now they are just money hungry political hogs that are essentially bullies. The pay rate that they are asking for is unheard of, and is way too much! They union also keeps talking about all the profits that the hospitals are making, but the one thing that they constantly fail to mention to anyone is that a large portion of the hospitals are Non Profit. The last time that I checked Non Profit means that they do not make a profit. I am sure that the hospitals are faced with all the budget cuts to the health care system and I am sure that they have to eat a lot of the costs when the government cuts the reimbursement that they receive. I believe that they also have to eat the costs of patients that do not pay bills as they do not have jobs or no health care coverage. They just need to give it up and be happy that they have a job, as there are many people out there that would be happy to have what they have! If they want to say that their work conditions are like slavery, maybe they should quit and go work at Wal-Mart!
Nemo's apology is as sincere and caveat free as I've seen anywhere, and I commend him for it.
However it doesn't answer the very important question of why MNA's members are not being openly and honestly apprised of the very real possibility that a walk-out will cost them their jobs, or at best, result in months (years?) of negotiations before they could return.
I'm no arbitrator, and I'm a reliable union critic, but judging from the reactions I hear and read, I'm not alone in my belief that the MNA's unfair practices claim looks pretty flimsy while there is a 12% (4% over three years) salary demand flapping in the breeze.
I was highly amused to read that John Nemo touted his credential as "a former AP reporter." I think he had an entry-level job, maybe even as an intern. Further, his verbose apology did not impress me. If it's a fact that he is being paid $110,000 a year, he should know how to handle the stress.
You know it's always funny, you see this vitriol against unions by people who are bitter about the pay and benefits unions earn for their members, while at the same time claiming that unions are obsolete. Go ahead, take your chances as an at-will employee, I got news for you dopes who think a lawyer will save you even if you don't have a contract, it don't work that way.
By the way Jason, all the hospitals in MN are non-profit. That doesn't mean they don't earn profits, it simply means they don't distribute those profits to shareholders. And by the way, they made hundreds of millions of dollars in profits last year.
If you people think you can trust corporations to treat employees fairly you're fools. And as far as labor rights are concerned, here's a fact you should be aware of, without a labor contract, you have no labor rights, and if you don't know that you shouldn't be spouting off about union obsolescence.
And another thing, this business of accusing the union of misleading it's members and betraying them etc. You people do realize that the nurses don't work for the union don't you? They work for the hospital, clinics, etc. Unlike their employers the union is run by the nurses, they aren't run by the union. The nurses will vote and tell the union what to do, not the other way around, it's called a strike vote for a reason.
By the way, no union member needs to be told how dangerous or difficult it is to go on strike. Especially by a bunch of folks who clearly would never have the guts to take a stand themselves.
Finally, you do all realize that wages and compensation for American workers have basically been flat for the last twenty years. Workers are not doing well in this country.
After the MNA's next strike fizzles out and either (1) they take nurse-patient ratios off the table or (2) their members are permanently replaced by the hospitals, J-schools will write case-studies on this MNA fiasco as an example of failed PR strategy and tactics. John Nemo will be one of the chief culprits in the story.
Paul says: "The nurses will vote and tell the union what to do, not the other way around, it's called a strike vote for a reason."
If you really believe that . . . and all the implications that it holds for the profession of nursing, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you!
Are you given to hyperbole or are you just incredibly naive?
Bo,
Regardless of the outcome this particular dispute, union members across the board earn more and have more benefits than non-union employees doing the same job, and they have more job security. This is one reason you see all this vitriol directed at them by non-union workers doing the same jobs. And you can tell those replacement nurses to bank the money they're making now, because if the unions are ever busted not only will they be outta work, but when they do work it will be for half what they make now. Unions don't win every battle, and they don't guarantee employment, but just because it's not impossible for a union employee to get fired doesn't mean you're better off without one. Ask some of the ex-Stribers around here, it's never any fun losing a job but without a union, or an executive contract, you get no buy-out, no severance, nothing. You show up to work and security escorts you out the door, bam- your gone; they don't even have to pay you until payday if they don't want to.
The idea that union members are stupid and greedy is simply daft. Unions routinely negotiate pay cuts and freezes in order to cope with financial stress, again, ask the former Stribers around here. It doesn't always work, companies can still go under, but without a contract there's no negotiation, they just change your job title, cut your pay, or send you packing.
As far as who tells who what to do in a union, all I can say Bo is I don't know what part of the word: "vote" you don't understand. If the members don't vote for it, it doesn't happen. That may not fit your conspiracy theory, but it's how things actually work. Even if a union votes for a strike, individuals can still cross the picket line, there may be personal consequences, but they can do it if they feel they need to.
I'm actually not completely sympathetic to the RN's here. I don't think they're under appreciated, or under-paid especially given their level of education. But they're entitled to negotiate the best contract they can, and the health care industry in general let alone the hospitals are so full of crap it's astounding.
Let me tell ya story, I worked in a hospital for ten years and the whole time management would tell us every year they were losing money. Every year we'd hear they were only collecting 42 cents for every dollar they billed. Well, we would get these annual reports mailed out to us every year. You'd usually toss them in the trash but one year I actually looked at it and it turned out the Hospital had made 19 million dollars the previous year. Three years later it was up to 24 million. Now in the 90s, for one hospital that was serious money. So at one of our meeting when managers used the 42 cents on the dollar story to explain why they were cutting staff and refusing wages increases I brought up the annual report. How'd they respond? They stopped mailing out the annual reports!
There were a series of hospital closures in the late 80's, but since then, with the exception of last, hospitals and health care are the only sector besides energy to see nearly double digit increases. And the dip last year was because of crappy investment income not revenue.
Frankly, I wouldn't trust the hospitals when they say they lost 125 million dollars last year. I'd like to see exactly what they mean by that, when you look closely at their statements they don't actually say they ran 125 million dollar operating deficits, I suspect what they really mean is that they lost 125 million in "potential" investment income. That would actually be a good question for some Minnpost reporter to ask sometime, when they say lost 125 million last year what EXACTLY to they mean by that? Does that mean they actually ran operating deficits or does it simply mean they made 125 million less on investments than they did the year before?
None of this makes MNA's position unassailable, but if you trust the hospitals information, I'm just telling you your a chump.
Bo Shesler wrote that " ... J-schools will write case-studies on this MNA fiasco as an example of failed PR strategy and tactics. John Nemo will be one of the chief culprits in the story." If true, it is amazing that John at such a young age will have become a publicist (flak?) to be studied.
Hannah said: ." If true, it is amazing that John at such a young age will have become a publicist (flak?) to be studied."
Not really, Hannah. It will just demonstrate the old adage that "nobody's entirely worthless . . . they can always be used as a bad example".
MNA is completely out of control and it started when they split from the American Nurses' Association (ANA). ANA would have never supported this Strike.
The 0, 1,2 % raises are very reasonable considering most Non-Union Nurses (like myself) have been on a wage freeze and the Pension needs to be closed and go into a 401k.
The patient staffing ratios are a real concern at some of the hospitals and needs evaluation.
The Strike in 84 was due to completely frightening work conditions. The inability to even get enough gloves to care for Persons' with Aids was met with " why are you using so many gloves?" The harrassment of Senior Nursing Staff which included closing work units for remodeling and sending RN's to the ICU with no training and then writing them up for " Nursing Negligence" so they could fire them and hire cheaper Nurses was apalling.
This Strike is about money pure and simple! NNU has pushed this down the throats of a lot of younger Nurses who do not understand they will be REPLACED if they Strike!
Nurses not only graduate from college, but then have to pass a very difficult board exam. Then we have to complete hours of mandatory education to maintain and recertify our license every two years. We are under scrutiny from management, JCAHO, the Dept of Health. We are exposed to Tuberculosis, H1N1, all kinds of infectious diseases. When we screw up, people die and we get sued. Nursing is not what it used to be; giving pills and changing bedpans. We are extemely diverse and valued for our critical thinking. We are the eyes and ears of our physicians and our patient's primary advocate. We deserve to be compensated. All we wanted was to keep our same contract. The hospitals want to gut our contract. Fine, then we keep asking to negotiate and modify our proposals if they will. I have sat at the the "negotiating" table; there is no discussion. What we hear is, "we are not interested in discussing your proposal." Would love the media to be welcomed at the "negotiations" so the public can see what really happens. Nurses don't want a raise; we would be very happy to keep whatever we have today. We start with a 4% raise so we can negotiate down and we have a bargaining chip for what we really want: safe staffing. If I am with one patient, my other five are on their own. Do you see how unsafe that is? And the pension? The only reason the pension is an issue is because they stopped contributing to our 403b years ago when they agreed to fun a pension. Now they want to take that away, too? Nurses deserve to come to work and feel appreciated. Police, Firemen, Teachers, EMTs, etc....we are fundamental to a functioning society. The public should support the nursing profession maintaining high respect. What happens when nurses are stripped of their profession? When you can just be a nurse without a license or accountability? Very scary...