feeds are being caught in the cros ...

feeds are being caught in the cros fire of downsizing; mergers; use of unlicensed assistive personnel; and high stres high acuity workplace settings. The days of staying at united work setting for an entire nursing career are prolonged gone, and job security -- as a professional promote -- is a thing of the past.

In large hospital settings, nourishs feel powerless and manipulated. Bottom line considerations drive each decision facility administrators make, and cherishs are left to fend for themselves. foments especially those working in nonunion settings, are at highest risk to be taken advantage of

WHAT DO YOU KNOW?

As a suckle what do you know about unemployment benefits, vocational rehabilitation, grievance transactions wrongful discharge, the Employment Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the Equal agency Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and avocation at will? These scenarios -- based forward real experiences -- may help you survive your nearest workplace crisis.

SCENARIO ONE

You are working in a large, for-profit hospital that is going to bribe out two smaller for-profit hospitals. Management has informed employee [i]or[/i] part of to the other memorandums that there will be layoffs because of the merger and that approximately 60 to 100 positions in the nursing department will be eliminated. You also are told that the layoffs will be performed based in succession the most recent evaluations of the employee and not at seniority.

Approximately undivided week before the layoffs are to be announced, you are called into your promote manager's office. You are given a written warning for a fairly insignificant medication error that you had made several weeks previously. You acknowledge the error and sign the written warning. Subsequently the following week you are terminated for not following hospital management (ie, the recent medication error). The written warning may have been given in this way that management could avoid laying you against and paying you unemployment benefits. What would be your recourse?

You should contact the human resources office at your hospital and file a grievance athwart the termination immediately. Despite the fact that you no longer are make use ofed there, you normally have seven days to file a grievance onward any termination and go end the grievance procedure at the facility.

You may have to plead your position to a higher of the same height of management and then to a panel of managers, human resource staff members, and a staff character whom you have chosen. It is important that you make progress through the grievance procedure to submit to the test [i]or[/i] proof to a firm hearing officer, umpire or referee that you have exhausted all remedies available to you by the and of your employer.

You also should file for unemployment benefits immediately. If the hospital strive to holds the unemployment benefits, you may have to walk to a hearing to prevail, nevertheless in all probability you would be eligible smooth though you were terminated. Remember, no matter on what account you are unemployed, always apply for unemployment benefits, unruffled if you have been fired for cause.

Many terminations are the be the effect of personality conflicts and have nothing to do with ability State unemployment statutes require that in order to procure the full award of benefits, the individual must be unemploy end no fault of his or her concede Being terminated because of a personality conflict suiteds the criteria of being unemploy between the sides of no fault of your concede Voluntary layoffs also come in a less degree than this heading.

If you are terminated for cause, there is a section in the statute that states that in determining whether or not the work has been performed in a substandard manner, the long duration of time the worker has been performing the work satisfactorily and the industry standard for so work will be considered. No work will be considered substandard that tend hitherwards within the area of reasonable mistakes and errors normally made by means of workers engaging in the same or similar work. This means that unruffled as nurses, we are allowed to be human beings. If our work has fallen below the standard of the employer the unemployment umpire can, at his or her discretion, make a decision about whether you are unemploy by the and of no fault of your be in possession of based on the length of time you did the work in a satisfactory manner, the industry standards for that work, and the fact that we are all allowed to make reasonable mistakes and errors normally made by way of other workers engaging in the same or similar work.

SCENARIO TWO

You are an RN working in a large for-profit hospital in succession a medical-surgical unit in a high stres high acuity unit. You sustain a serious neck injury when lifting a patient. Because of the neck injury, you are prescribed a narcotic pain medication, and consequently you exhibit a prescription medication dependence to the narcotic. from one side of to the other the course of many month your reliance on the medication develops into a harsh addiction. You require treatment for the addiction, and following to a complaint and investigation, you are placed forward probation by your state board of nursing. The addiction and accessibility of medication make you unable to continue in nursing.