Should Nurses Strike?

Nurses once had a reputation for being doormats.

Let’s face it: We could be abused pretty badly before ever fighting back. We’d work three different shifts in one week, work unpaid overtime, might not even get a bathroom break much less a meal break, and the pay – well, for years it was pretty paltry.

Nurses are much better paid now, but patient safety has become an issue and nurses are speaking up and standing their ground.

I’m not sure when it started or by whom, but some years ago, a group of nurses began collecting horrendous stories about patient endangerment and adverse outcomes due to staffing shortages. This probably helped to swell the ranks of the unions and the willingness of nurses to go on strike – something nurses do only when we see no alternatives.

Earlier this month, 4,000 union nurses (with the California Nurses Association) were planning to strike March 21 at eight hospitals in the San Francisco Bay area. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, a union representative said that the strike is intended to call attention to “serious problems with patient care,” and a “pattern of patient safety risks” by the “hospital’s refusal to schedule RNs to care for patients when nurses are on legally mandated meal or rest breaks.”

Nurses there also are unhappy with the hospital’s proposals for employee pensions and health care plans.

“When there are not enough nurses, patients are put at risk, period,” a union representative told the Chronicle. “We don't want to strike, but our ethical obligation as patient advocates demands it."

Have you ever participated in a strike?

If so, why and for how long?

Was the strike successful in gaining its objectives?

How did you feel about participating in the strike?

If you’ve never been a part of a strike, would you consider doing so?