CNA, One Day Strikes and Your Paycheck (Missing more than one day’s pay, for sure)
4/27/15 EDIT: We are in receipt of an email from the hospital whose CNA strike notice is below. The registries and strike staffers are bargaining hard these days. They required a five day contract from this hospital. How many days are you working between 5/1 and 5/5? That’s how many days pay you would go without if this was happening at OUR hospital. You can’t work and you can’t take PTO. If you were working 3 of the 5 days, you would be out 3 days of pay!!! That’s half of your paycheck, potentially. And if you are a single income family, that could be tough.
CNA likes to say that they don’t strike very often. Yet the beginning of May (Nurses Week) is filled with plans to strike at eight hospitals around California including Little Company of Mary (see announcement below) and Henry Mayo. One of the RNs from Henry Mayo showed us her letter telling her that if she crossed the picket line and went to work anyway she would be fined an amount equivalent to one day’s pay. So if CNA is telling you you won’t be fined for crossing the picket line, that is not the truth.
CNA has no strike fund (see their tax forms called LM-2s, at truthaboutcna.com), where worker’s would be paid while striking because they only schedule one day strikes. Strike pay is typically paid if the strike lasts longer than 3 days). You cannot shut off patient care the way you can shut off commerce like the dock workers did at ports up and down the west coast. So hospitals are forced to hire temporary workers to replace the RNs striking. And the registers contracting with the hospital for temporary workers typically require a 3-5 day contract.
The funny thing is one of our CNA supporting nurses went and worked as a scab at a CNA strike in the bay area. She traded days with other nurses so she would be free to go do this. She was paid $3000 for a one day orientation and 2 days of patient care. Really?
So here is my question: Is this us? Is this why we are at Huntington? Is this why we became nurses? Because I don’t get it.