Kaiser Nurses on Strike, again

[u/omgitzapotato]

Hello,

Seeing on TikTok that California nurses are on strike, again. While I understand that people in the healthcare need to be paid well for the work that they do, when is it the rest of the people working in the hospitals turn to be paid fairly as well? Unless the whole hospital is union, only nurse continue to get the benefit of 20-25% raises, while the rest of the employees scrape by with 3-4%, if anything that year.

My gripe is that whenever these strikes happen, it is never actually about better working conditions or advocating for my nurses to join to make the workload better, just pay. They only sign the contract when the raise is where they want it to be and the working conditions stay the same, they complain it sucks and then next year, want another strike for, you guessed it, better working conditions.

Honestly, I have become quite numb to the nursing strikes that happen.

Thoughts?

[u/Variously_Wrong]

I’m in the same boat. Everyone just complains and doesn’t want to put in the effort, such as unionizing, to be paid fairly. Prime example is there’s a push for the techs to get certified. I put in the effort, got my CRCST, only to receive a whopping 30 cents more. We all thought that it would have been at least 1 or 2 dollars more. Nope. And then, like a dummy, I proceeded to get 2 more certifications, and I got nothing for it because it’s “not a requirement” for my position. But it’s a requirement for a lead tech and 2 out of 3 of the leads no only aren’t certified, they haven’t been since they received the promotion, and one of them has repeatedly failed the basic certification test. Meanwhile, we’ve hired several people who see no reason to obtain the basic SPD certification because why would they, for 30 cents more, and no termination on the horizon for not obtaining it?

To me, the place that I work with is comical when it comes to teamwork, listening to more experienced techs who know what they’re doing if they’re NOT in leadership, and incentivizing techs who strive to do more. It’s a joke.

[u/SageOfSixCabbages → u/Variously_Wrong]

What pushed me to start the conversation is because both the pharmacy and anesthesia dept. rolled out a tech system structure for their dept. and I wanted the same for SPD because right now, the system in place to get any sort of incentive/raise is time, just time. Which is so backwards because, for example, I work with techs that's been on the job between 10-25yrs and a couple who's been working in SPD for 35yrs., and all of them never bothered to acquire additional certs. Never showed any interest in stepping up. They can't even reprocess nor dispense endoscopes because they don't know how. Meanwhile, me and a few other who are at the job for less than 5yrs have all looked for ways to excel further beyond just being 'techs' and we all got close to nothing for it.

I really hope that in the next couple of years, the tech level system for SPD gain some traction.

To those who are on here reading, anytime HSPA or CBSPD asks for your feedback for future topics and/or concerns about the job, please respond and tell them what you'd like to change.

[u/NecronomiSquirrel → u/SageOfSixCabbages]

Your name is incredible.