RE: Unions for Histology

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From:"Woodfin, Amy C" <AWoodfin@peacehealth.org>
To:"'histonet@pathology.swmed.edu'" <histonet@Pathology.swmed.edu>
Reply-To:
Date:Mon, 3 May 1999 12:19:16 -0700
Content-Type:text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

There was a unionization effort at our hospital last year, which included
non-technical, technical, and professional job classifications.  Yes, as
with many facilities, the nurses here are also unionized.  This particular
unionization effort was directed at the non-technical employees after the
technical and professional employees made it quite clear that a union was
not what they wanted.  The unionization effort failed resoundingly among the
non-technical employees at the vote.

Each person has their own opinion on unions and their effectiveness or lack
there of.  The unionization efforts here happened before I got into
management, so I was directly effected.  I'm personally not interested in
paying someone to come between me and my supervisors.  Nor am I interested
in someone telling me when I can and can't work.  Neither am I interested in
supporting Joe Blow who has been there forever and is only there to collect
a pay check, while I bust my b__t doing the best job I can.  I have the
freedom to leave if I don't like the working conditions.  No one is forcing
me to stay in a job...any job.  Unions are divisive.  They pit employee
against employee (those in favor and those against), and they pit employees
against management.

There is obviously something wrong in a system when individuals and groups
don't feel they have the ability to go directly to their management with
problems and issues.  Sad truth is that there are both good and bad
management staff in every facility.  The goal should be to foster better
management that has direct employee contact and input, weed out those in
management that still believe in slave labor, work with our governing
agencies to address inadequacies in the lab, and not insert a middle-man,
which is all a collective bargaining situation does, into a field that they
potentially know nothing about and for which, many times, they cannot make
informed decisions.  We had a food service workers union trying to tell us
they knew more about staffing for direct patient care, and had more concern
for the patients than our hospital management.  I don't think so.

Thanks!
Amy Woodfin
Pathology Supervisor
St. Joseph Hospital
Bellingham, WA


	----------
	From:  John Shaw [SMTP:jolesh@hotmail.com]
	Sent:  Monday, May 03, 1999 8:41 AM
	To:  HistoNet@Pathology.swmed.edu
	Subject:  Unions for Histology

	Fellow Histonetters;

	I wonder if the day will ever arrive when Histotechnologists and
other lab 
	personnel will ever form a union.  Many years ago, it was attempted,
but 
	defeated due to fear that Pathologists would fire employees that
tried to 
	unionize.  This is the one of the main reasons that salaries for
members of 
	our profession remain so low when compared to other medical
professions.  
	Nurses unionized many years ago, and now their salaries seem
unobtainable to 
	us lowly lab employees.  Seems to me that we provide just as
important a 
	function, if not more so, to patients as they.  I ask this question,
just to 
	bring about discussion from my fellow "netters".  Let's here your
thoughts!

	John


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