What is going to happen....

Like most nurses in California, I belong to a union. CNA, as a matter of fact. (California Nurses Association.). This is mandatory, to work at my hospital. My hospital is a member of a group of hospitals, and organization called Catholic Healthcare West. (CHW). I can (and have) transfer to other CHW hospitals, maintaining my senority, and, more importantly, my retirement funds. We, (nurses), contract with our hospital, usually every 3-4 years. When the contract is up, our union, and representatives from our hospital negotiate with the hospital grand poobah's for what we want our next contract to include. You can bet, we always want a raise. We always want safe staffing for our patients, and a host of other items that probably wouldn't mean a darn thing to you. Some of them are 'red herrings', things we don't REALLY want, but we have to have something to negotiate, right?

Well, a new trend in contract negotiation has been surfacing in the last few years. Instead of negotiating our small, tiny little contract with our small, tiny little hospital, CNA is negotiating ALL the CHW hospitals in Northern California. AT ONE TIME.

This means we are all for one, and one for all. If the hospital in say, Stockton, is not getting what they need, then, despite us getting what we need, we are going to strike. And it works vice versa. We all get a raise, or none of us get one. We all get better benefits..... and so on... and so forth.

There is power in numbers, and that is so. More than likely, I will get maybe, better things, because we are doing this.

We are, possibly, though, going to have a one day strike, on October 30th. We being all the CHW in Northern California, myself included. Its called an "informational picket". A chance for us to let the public know what we want, and why we've chosen to go on strike for one day. If agreement between the union, and the hospital can be reached before then, then we won't. If we DO strike, the hospital can lock us out of our jobs, for 10 days.

I am scheduled five of those 10 days.

Its kind of a nerve wracking thing. I totally support my union. If I didn't, what use would the union be?

Will the hospital lock us out for 10 days? Doubtful, they'd have to find other nurses to cross into our picket to do that. (if they lock us out, I assume we will still be picketing). Plus, since this is MULTIPLE hospitals, finding enough "scab" nurses would be a chore. A costly chore.

But I am still nervous about it. In my 13 years of nursing, this is the first time one of my contracts has come to this.

Its also the first time my contract has been negotiated with multiple other CHW contracts....