Firing Nurses Isn't Groovy

So the hospital I work at is one of many owned by the Hospital Corporation of America or HCA. And recently, more and more HCA hospitals are becoming unionized. Our hospital became unionized last fall and the unions are still working on our initial contracts to begin changing working conditions. Anyway...there are two unions involved: National Nurses United is for RNs and 1199SEIU for all non-RN staff (people like me). Both of these unions frequently post flyers in our break rooms to notify us of what is going on in bargaining or in other unionized hospitals around the country. Today, one such flyer caught my eye...

This flyer said that in an HCA-affiliated hospital in Texas, seven nurses were recently fired. The reason? These nurses worked in the ICU and they refused to accept an additional assignment that in their professional judgment was unsafe.

Hospital management demanded the nurses, who in the ICU provide constant care for the hospital’s most severely ill patients, take on additional duties of temporary charge nurse, who make clinical assignments for patients and staff on the floor, and code team assignments, which can require them to rush to other hospital floors to assist with patients – leaving their own ICU patients and their ICU charge duties behind.

In addition, when the chief nursing officer was notified by email of HR's decision to threaten termination of the nurses, his response was, "Groovy". So today, RNs at the hospital where I work were passing out stickers that read: "Firing Nurses isn't groovy". Sounds like they might be wearing these stickers to the next union bargaining session.