California Healthcare Cooperative

Submitted by Meteor Man on Mon, 09/04/2017 - 10:51am

This is an innovative approach for unionized nurses to develop more nursing jobs and support non-unionized healthcare workers:

Nurses Join Forces With Labor Union to Launch Health Care Platform Cooperative

The motivation to create the cooperative wasn't only to provide more work opportunities, but also better work opportunities. Licensed vocational nurses are comparable to registered nurses, but those who formed the cooperative said they couldn't utilize all their skills in most hospitals.

"Within our scope of practice, we can do thousands of things … I want to be able to do all the things that I can do with my license," Pedroza says.

Job enhancement and job development:

The cooperative model also allows the union to better expand to part-time workers who are not always under union representation or receive full benefits. In fact, none of the licensed vocational nurses work for the cooperative full-time -- they see this as an opportunity for extra work that can both provide more income, but also allow them to use their skills in ways that isn't always possible in many hospitals.

The coop challenges the traditional model in a similar manner to the SEIU Justice For Janitors approach:

"The membership are a lot of lower wage healthcare workers, and their jobs have changed a lot in the last few years," Criscitiello says.

Criscitiello sees this model as a way unions can better address workers' needs, as the traditional model is facing challenges in protecting and bettering the lives of their members.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/41801-nurses-join-forces-with-labor-u...

Tags:

#Healthcare Coop #Nurses Union

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Comments

Submitted by Wink on Mon, 09/04/2017 - 11:27am

Hell, almost All the

work once done by MDs - blood pressure, look in your ear, check your heart... is now done by nurses. You see your doctor for, like, 4, 5 mins., tops, while s/he checks your chart, asks any aches or pains, and finishes up the hard work with an, alrighty then, see you in six months! And, that will be $200...

—

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Submitted by Meteor Man on Mon, 09/04/2017 - 1:02pm

The AMA Sucks

@Wink
That's another aspect of America's overpriced meritocracy healthcare scam.

Medical school requirements for dentists because. . . . ? Dental technicians also merit higher pay and could do many more tasks than they are now allowed to perform.

—

"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

Submitted by GreyWolf on Mon, 09/04/2017 - 9:11pm

Nice to see a story on a co-op, thanks for highlighting this

"I didn't know much about co-ops before … once I started doing the research, I fell in love," Desiree M. Pedroza, a licensed vocational nurse and president of the NursesCan Cooperative's board, says. "A cooperative is one of the best things you could be part of."

Criscitiello says she believes this model will receive positive responses from employers who want to utilize on-demand workers more and more. Doing that through a worker cooperative can result in better work for members and happier employers — a win-win. She hopes that their efforts to build this partnership will spur other unions and cooperatives to work closely together, something she does not see happening nearly enough in the healthcare sector or elsewhere.

"There are deep and powerful connections between democratic workplaces and what unions organize around," Criscitiello says. "I hope that both unions and workers co-ops can start to see the value in partnering more."

https://www.shareable.net/blog/nurses-join-forces-with-labor-union-to-la...

So, the article was first published on August 21, 2017 on Shareable under a Creative Commons License ... then by truth-out on September 04, 2017 with the tag "This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source." Yeah, that 'permission or license' is a Creative Commons License - isn't there some saying about deception by omission is still lying? Great job, [in wiping the] truth out.

But even Nithin Coca's article seems to concentrate more on the union involvement rather than the fact that the employees are the owners. The only reason the nurses now have to submit to the union is because the union provided help to start the co-op. And now "The union has a collective bargaining agreement with the co-op ..."

The SEIU says they want to work with more co-ops, I bet they want to 'work' with others. "Criscitiello [research coordinator at SEIU-UHW West] says she believes this model will receive positive responses from employers who want to utilize on-demand workers more and more." Neither Nithin Coca nor Ra Criscitiello cope with, or articulate, the fact that Ria Lancaster is worker/employee and owner/employer all at the same time. Capitalist English does not mesh well with democratic economics.

RIA LANCASTER
Ria Lancaster is a Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN) and co-owner and board member at NursesCan, a platform co-op of LVNs that can be dispatched on-demand to patients’ homes through a mobile or online device. Ria and her co-owners founded the cooperative in 2016 with the support of the Service Employees International Union – United Healthcare Workers West.

https://platform.coop/2016/participants/ria-lancaster

But anyway, thanks again for highlighting this, MM

Submitted by Meteor Man on Tue, 09/05/2017 - 12:20pm

Healthcare Wow!

@GreyWolf
Thanks for all the background graywolf. Everybody and their mama is hiding the full story.

"I didn't know much about co-ops before … once I started doing the research, I fell in love," Desiree M. Pedroza, a licensed vocational nurse and president of the NursesCan Cooperative's board, says. "A cooperative is one of the best things you could be part of."

Criscitiello says she believes this model will receive positive responses from employers who want to utilize on-demand workers more and more. Doing that through a worker cooperative can result in better work for members and happier employers — a win-win. She hopes that their efforts to build this partnership will spur other unions and cooperatives to work closely together, something she does not see happening nearly enough in the healthcare sector or elsewhere.

"There are deep and powerful connections between democratic workplaces and what unions organize around," Criscitiello says. "I hope that both unions and workers co-ops can start to see the value in partnering more."

https://www.shareable.net/blog/nurses-join-forces-with-labor-union-to-la...

So, the article was first published on August 21, 2017 on Shareable under a Creative Commons License ... then by truth-out on September 04, 2017 with the tag "This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source." Yeah, that 'permission or license' is a Creative Commons License - isn't there some saying about deception by omission is still lying? Great job, [in wiping the] truth out.

But even Nithin Coca's article seems to concentrate more on the union involvement rather than the fact that the employees are the owners. The only reason the nurses now have to submit to the union is because the union provided help to start the co-op. And now "The union has a collective bargaining agreement with the co-op ..."

The SEIU says they want to work with more co-ops, I bet they want to 'work' with others. "Criscitiello [research coordinator at SEIU-UHW West] says she believes this model will receive positive responses from employers who want to utilize on-demand workers more and more." Neither Nithin Coca nor Ra Criscitiello cope with, or articulate, the fact that Ria Lancaster is worker/employee and owner/employer all at the same time. Capitalist English does not mesh well with democratic economics.

RIA LANCASTER
Ria Lancaster is a Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN) and co-owner and board member at NursesCan, a platform co-op of LVNs that can be dispatched on-demand to patients’ homes through a mobile or online device. Ria and her co-owners founded the cooperative in 2016 with the support of the Service Employees International Union – United Healthcare Workers West.

https://platform.coop/2016/participants/ria-lancaster

But anyway, thanks again for highlighting this, MM

—

"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn