Hospitals Ignore Nurses’ Pleas for Security after Strike

By A MINNESOTA NURSE

After September’s state-wide nursing strike Minnesota hospitals are still unwilling to have a reasonable discussion about nurses’ labor contract. Nurses are baffled about why hospitals are not playing ball after eight months of negotiations.

Since the pandemic began, hospitals have seen a massive influx of violence, including several instances of visitors bringing firearms onto hospital floors.

Nurses are concerned for their safety and the safety of their patients, but hospitals refuse to do things like add metal detectors. Metal detectors are found in many schools and grocery stores around the state. Should your hospital be less secure than your Cub?

From the start, hospitals have said that they respect their nurses. They were cheerleaders during the pandemic, but when the dust cleared and nurses began demanding better working conditions, they said we were asking for too much. These are the same nurses who risked—and sometimes lost—their lives during the pandemic. Lip service about respect is not cutting it. Nurses need material change.
Hospitals have said they are financially unable to meet the nurses’ demands, yet during the strike they openly offered $11,000 or more a week to travel nurses who came in as strikebreakers. And this was just their pay—with agencies taking a cut, hospitals’ costs were even higher.… Read the rest “Hospitals Ignore Nurses’ Pleas for Security after Strike”