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California nurses union plans holiday strike over PPE

californiaglobe.com

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Re: California nurses union plans holiday strike over PPE

#81

Post by dragonwriter »

Simulacra wrote: post #74

Unpopular opinion: Unions should not be allowed to strike during an emergency.

The US has been in a continuous state of national emergency (usually multiple overlapping ones) since the 1970s, and that's without “during an emergency” automatically voiding labor rights.

If an emergency justifies conscription, then the necessary personnel should be conscripted; if it doesn't, there is no cause to waive labor rights, which exist specifically to assure that labor is genuinely consensual and not a matter of economic coercion.

Re: California nurses union plans holiday strike over PPE

#82

Post by bioinformatics »

cronix wrote: post #50

In 2006, CA Gov. Schwarzenegger spent $200 Million dollars on stockpiling PPE and ventilators. This was on the heel of the Swine Flu in order to leave the state better prepared in case of another pandemic. The stockpile took about $5 Million a year to maintain after the initial $200M purchase. In 2011, CA Gov. Brown got rid of the program to save that $5M/yr. https://revealnews.org/article/california-created-a-massiv…

Damn Orange man and his failed policies.

Re: California nurses union plans holiday strike over PPE

#83

Post by iaw »

dpeck wrote: post #65
obmelvin wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding from earlier reading of HN was that it takes months (closer to 1 year than 1 month from what I remember) to standup a new production line for N95 masks. With the supply chain constraints & presumable demand for such things that could possibly take even longer to set up, I think it is understandable that we haven't seen an increased supply on store shelves.

I just don’t see how this can be the reality that we’re living in. These things were $1/per at retail before the pandemic. People are ready to pay many multiples ($10/day? Sure. $20/day? Yeah) of that now, how are the economic incentives not aligned to make these things be extremely common and easy for everyone to buy.

This is where the fine print in economics comes in, things will eventually be balanced by the invisible hand but that's only in the long-term. In the short-term an untold amount of human suffering can occur.

Economics doesn't solve for reduced human misery. To avoid this we would have needed adequate central plans for this event (or rather, a set of people that decided to fund the plans we did have).

Re: California nurses union plans holiday strike over PPE

#84

Post by legitster »

This was a huge failure on the federal government.

All they had to do was guarantee to buy up a minimum number of masks at a reasonable price, which would have been the reasonable thing to do anyway (even if there was overproduction, they can start a new stockpile). A lot of new manufacturers were willing to dump costs into tooling up production if they knew there would be demand in a year or two for the product.

But because the government waffled so long, and kept casting doubt even on the length of the pandemic, barely anyone was willing to dump the money into production.

As I understand it, the current situation is that the majority of manufacturers for N95 masks today were the same ones that existed in 2019.

Re: California nurses union plans holiday strike over PPE

#85

Post by Baeocystin »

eplanit wrote: post #47

Doesn't the California Nurses Union strike almost regularly, anyway? Assuming that nurses have a better understanding of the virus than average laypeople, and given the facts of the number of positive cases, plus the facts which undermine the claims (California seems to actually have a stockpile), it seems unprofessional and unethical in the extreme to strike at this time.

I have family who work as nurses on the front lines. One of them just got back from her third shift in a week in the covid unit, and has had a grand total of one reused N95 mask to use, in flagrant violation of what is considered acceptable barrier practice. And this is at one of the biggest hospitals in California. The way the staff are being treated is despicable, and I 100% support any striking action by the Nurses' union.

Re: California nurses union plans holiday strike over PPE

#86

Post by rwmurrayVT »

iaw wrote: post #83
dpeck wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don’t see how this can be the reality that we’re living in. These things were $1/per at retail before the pandemic. People are ready to pay many multiples ($10/day? Sure. $20/day? Yeah) of that now, how are the economic incentives not aligned to make these things be extremely common and easy for everyone to buy.

This is where the fine print in economics comes in, things will eventually be balanced by the invisible hand but that's only in the long-term. In the short-term an untold amount of human suffering can occur. Economics doesn't solve for reduced human misery. To avoid this we would have needed adequate central plans for this event (or rather, a set of people that decided to fund the plans we did have).

That is a massive hole that is often looked over by many. Oh, the market will take care of it. When? After we're all dying from pollution or missing fingers from faulty equipment? How can you in good faith believe the market will take care of everything?

Re: California nurses union plans holiday strike over PPE

#87

Post by blululu »

justin66 wrote: post #33
blululu wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nurses in CA have been unionized for quite a while now. At the point that a strike is happening I’m not sure the union is having much success negotiating with the hospital over something that should be basic, obvious and mutually beneficial. One of the big complaints that people have about Unions (under US law) is that they do not really care so much about employee welfare as much as some specific set of bargaini…

You don't need to rework existing labor law for organized labor and employee ownership to coexist. ESOPs with unions were more popular prior to the Reagan era, but I don't believe they've been made illegal.

True. My last statement should have been split into two separate proposals: 1.) Better legal/financial support for cooperative business models (the laws on the books are prohibitive for capital intensive projects). 2.) Revising the NLRA to allow competition among multiple unions for representation. Right to work laws are too far on this issue but unions should not simply exist as a monopoly, they should have to have some incentive to earn their members.

Re: California nurses union plans holiday strike over PPE

#88

Post by webmaven »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #40

If I were a medical worker, and they gave me shit PPE and told me that I'm not allowed to use my own - I'd simply ignore them until I was fired. It's gonna suck dying if I need to go to the hospital, but I don't blame the nurses at all for this

> If I were a medical worker, and they gave me shit PPE and told me that I'm not allowed to use my own - I'd simply ignore them until I was fired.

You'd not only be risking your job, but your license as well (as in, future employment in your field).

Re: California nurses union plans holiday strike over PPE

#90

Post by ashtonkem »

sremani wrote: post #63
jfengel wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Pfizer vaccine was developed in Germany. The Oxford vaccine was developed in the UK. Of the approved vaccines, only the Moderna vaccine was developed in the US (and it's actually being manufactured in Switzerland). The J&J vaccine is being developed in Belgium. That's not to say that the US hasn't been playing important roles, both now and in the research that enabled this. But "without American ingenuity" we'd b…

Did you get vaccinated?

That’s completely unrelated to the question at hand. Your assertion was that American ingenuity brought us three vaccines, which was demonstrably disproven.

If you want to make the point “but we’ll do a great job distributing it”, an argument I’m not feeling positive about, then make that argument explicitly.

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