Nurses vote to strike! Hospital shows it's lack of interest in most experienced staff.

[patrice]

Hospital proposes radical cuts to nurse pensions, health-benefits, and take home pay:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nurses-at-brooklyn-hospital-overwhelmingly-vote-to-strike-129319013.html

The registered nurses at Brooklyn Hospital understand the challenges facing the hospital and have repeatedly sacrificed for the good of the hospital. In fact, the union's current contract proposals provide substantial cost savings to the hospital.

"Management is taking advantage of concerns about the overall economic climate to advance proposals that undercut the nurses' quality of life," Murphy said.

Management is seeking to downgrade the nurses' pension plan, cutting benefits and removing the option for nurses to retire at 60 without penalty. They are also seeking cuts in the nurses' health insurance benefits and overall are asking for concessions that would cost experienced nurses at least an estimated $6,180 per nurse over three years and equate to a pay cut of $1,680.

(Teachers will recognize this trend) The deal, in an environment characterized by staffing shortages, is to increase care-giver to care-receiver ratios and then depend upon the professional's personal sense of responsibility to carry the day through long hours and financial stresses, that is, until something breaks and the system needs someone to blame.

Anyone who decides not to do this can be replaced by younger staff without the absolutely vital experience needed for quality care inside business environments that can have all of the personal empathy of a machine and which are known to produce some of the poorest health results for the highest dollars in the world.

[HockeyMom]

1. Nurses are UNION

Enough said. As far as everthing else, I have been asked as a TA to fill in (Sub) for a teacher who has been out when they cannot get a qualified sub. I have told them that I do not want to do this because I do not feel that I am QUALIFIED to do so. Yeah, they didn't like that one, but there are others who think they are qualified.. So be it. It's the CHILDREN who will lose, all because they don't want to spend the MONEY.

[nineteen50]

2. Well

The number and dollar values of corporate, banking and small
business tax breaks over the last 4 years should be considered
in the shared sacrifice debt reduction talks. Also consider
government pay freezes, pension plan reduction, increased
medical costs and budget cuts and layoffs of public employees.
We also need to allow the federal government to negotiate drug
costs based on volume no more retail price for Medicare drugs.
Also consider the profit increases of international
corporations over the last four years; Above all remember it
was not the poor, elderly and infirmed that created this
economic problem. The debt transfer over the last 5 years from
the private financial sector to the public sector created this
problem, Take back the bonuses.
    Reduce all tax deductions by 5% for personal, business and
corporations. All allowances, depreciation, subsidies etc.
across the board so it is a shared sacrifice.Those that scream
the most are those who receive the most government help.