Should workers still join unions?

Unions are absolutely necessary. Most of my 25 year nursing career was spent in "Right to Work" states.....where you have the "right to work" for peanuts, horrible benefits, are continuously overworked and underpaid, and abused by employers who were out for the all mighty $.

I finally switched careers (now self employed) when, after years of excruciating back pain, an MRI showed that I have a large benign tumor wrapped around my spinal cord. It was caused by the continuous back injuries, most sustained when I had to do 2-4 person lifts alone because we were so understaffed that no one could come help.

After the 2nd serious injury, I was essentially told that if I kept hurting my back (like it was my fault), I'd lose my job. I was single and had 2 young children at home to care for....so, like most nurses, I learned to work with untreated bone fractures, a young back that felt as if it was 120 years old, torn shoulder ligaments....you name it.

By the time my body was so badly beat up I had 2 choices: 1.) Leave nursing or 2.) End up in a wheelchair

Not to mention that I barely knew what a "break" was. I'd go 14+ hours without using the bathroom, which led to chronic bladder & kidney infections. And my hospital had a very strict attendance rule: You were allowed to miss ONE day out of a 365 day rolling calendar. Most of us saved that day for when our kids were sick with some crud we had brought home with us from the hospital. We'd go to work with pneumonia, horrible colds and flus, and lots of other contagious stuff (that we had usually picked up from the hospital). When one of us would turn a deathly color of gray, the sick person would have a co-worker put an IV in them. They'd work the front desk until their bag was dry. Then back to work. iI worked almost exclusively Maternal/Child Health and NICU. Often, our units would look like a zombie apocalypse because of all the terribly ill nurses and doctors working.

But one of my FAVORITE things our non-union hospital did is something that people outside of the medical field have little knowledge of. I was ONLY trained in M/C health, L&D and NICU. Often, house supervisors would take us away from our already desperately understaffed unit and "float" us to other units where we had no training or experience. They'd SAY that we were just going to act as nurse's aides, but that never happened: the other unit would load us down with a full assignment of seriously sick patients in need of alot of SKILLED care. We had no idea what we were doing....but if we refused, that meant automatic termination of employment. Of course, whenever Labor and Delivery was overloaded and understaffed and we asked for help, the response was always, "Oh...sorry. The other nurses aren't trained in Labor and Delivery so they can't do it." Somehow, that was a concern, but putting RN's who spent their whole careers delivering babies were expected to remember the 2 days they spent on caring for post op open heart surgeries in nursing school decades ago.

I could go on and on. I'm tired of hearing that noise about nurses shouldn't unionize because the UNION leaders can become corrupt. Haha....They should concern themselves with the overpaid CEO's sitting in their offices, dreaming up dangerous new ways to send higher dividends to their stock holders. And of course, those CEO's relished the bonuses they got for creating dangerous situations in the hospitals. What did the hospital workers get as an annual gesture of gratitude? a $10 gift card for Kroger....that was subject to payroll tax and then sales tax.

There's already a nursing shortage. After the whole COVID19 debacle, where staff often couldn't even get the most basic of PPE, I know many who are leaving the profession. They've had enough. And if these workers had ever had any doubts, now they know that their lives mean NOTHING to the big wigs running large, prosperous hospital and raking in 7-8 figure salaries....while stripping front line employees of even their tiny yearly raises, making them pay ALOT more for their health insurance, and abusing the nurses, aids, etc who needed hip and knee replacements before they turned 40.

Yes, we need unions. I fear that the continual lack of unions will reign ruin upon the people whose lives depend on the care these providers give.

Everyone else in this country should also be terrified, because at any time, any of us could find ourselves in a situation where we need proper hospital care or we could die. That high paid CEO simply cannot fulfill the duties of the vital staff that said CEO exploits and abuses.

This healthcare system is an unholy mess. If these conditions continue, the entire US healthcare system (which is repeatedly ranked near the bottom, compared to OCED countries). Could collapse. Then what? Run to Canada and flood their healthcare facilities?

Now that we have fair labor laws I don't believe it is necessary to have unions. If you pay dues to a union and then decide later to work for another company, you will lose that money you paid to the union. I was an RN [now retired] and my husband was a carpenter. We both preferred working for non-union jobs and had great working relationships with our bosses. Good bosses will reward good employees and pay you according to your work . Employers are not enemies. Most are good. Some are bad, but you have a choice. You don't have to stay working for a bad one. You can help your employer improve a bad situation with helpful, respectful dialogue and good and intelligent suggestions. Remember, employers need you as much as you need them and THEY ARE TAKING A CHANCE ON YOU. You will go farther if you have an attitude of gratitude and work hard. Lastly, unions tend to create an adversarily relationship between employer and employee and that doesn't help anyone but the unions who are raking in the union dues and getting rich like Hollywood agents. Why not keep your hard earned wages. My husband and I prayed for good jobs that were a right fit for each of us and we believe God provided.