As struggles between employers and employers surge, hot and cold, over labor standards in the pandemic era, union nurses are demanding better workplace protections from the spreading COVID-19 virus. On Jan. 13, registered nurse members of California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU) rallied across the US for more employer accountability tied to a crisis of staffing and unsafe workplaces.
What the CNA/NNU wants is optimal workplace protections. In the Golden State where the GOP is a weak minority party, the union says that the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) has not adopted such workplace protections.
We turn to the CDPH. Health care providers (HCPs) “who have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and are asymptomatic may return to work immediately without isolation and without testing,” according to the CDPH, “and HCPs who have been exposed and are asymptomatic may return to work immediately without quarantine and without testing. These HCPs must wear an N95 respirator for source control.”
The CDPH workplace guidelines followed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s shortening of the quarantine period late last December. NNU President Zenei Triunfo-Cortez, RN, is not buying what the CDPH is selling.
“Everyone will need medical care at some point in their lives,” she said in a statement, “and when our loved ones are in the hospital, we want nurses to be able to deliver the focused care that patients deserve. However, employers have prioritized profits over safe patient care. They have cut corners on safe staffing since long before COVID-19, and with the pandemic still in full swing, they are driving desperately needed nurses away from the profession.”
How the resolution of a national workplace emergency in the health care industry plays out is what is at stake. The “nursing shortage,” according to the union, is a term that conceals more than it reveals relative to retaining HCPs during the COVID-19 pandemic. For the CNA/NNU, the shortage of nurses is a deficit of them unwilling to risk their licenses or patient safety under work conditions that are the results of profit-imperatives from employers.
Private investors owned 24% of US hospitals in 2021, according to the American Hospital Association (AHA). The numbers are from 2019, well before the coronavirus pandemic became a new normal.
An NNU survey of thousands of RNs from across the US last October to December found that 82.5% of respondents reported that at least half of their work shifts had unsafe staffing. The recent NNU survey also found that 68% of respondents said that they have considered leaving their position.
“The answer to nurses unwilling to work in unsafe conditions is never to overload the remaining nurses with more patients and, in states where it is not prohibited, force them to work mandatory overtime,” said Triunfo-Cortez. “The solution we can start implementing today is for hospitals to immediately staff up every unit, every shift, and create a safe, sustainable work environment where nurses can feel confident about their ability to provide the best nursing care possible for their patients. We call on our communities to stand with us. Our patients deserve far better.”
As the omicron variant of the coronavirus spreads, the issue of union nurses demanding improved workplace safety will likely continue.
Seth Sandronsky lives and works in Sacramento. He is a journalist and member of the Pacific Media Workers Guild. Email sethsandronsky@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, February 15, 2022
Blog | Current Issue | Back Issues | Essays | Links
About the Progressive Populist | How to Subscribe | How to Contact Us