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MT Week / Wednesday / Take A Union Break - Bettie_Bgood

Posted: May 18, 2011

Suggested Activity: Check out this union that actually worksâ�¦and send greetings! All you need to do is Google: Hospital Workers, Facing Layoffs, Launch Counterattack On Executives The union involved is National Union of Healthcare Workersâ�¦and guess what â�� when they were asked to make big concessions, they said no â�� and pointed out how much money the hospital bigwigs were getting â�� why not start with cutting THEIR pay, instead of asking the average worker to embrace painful cuts and/or layoffs? So now the tables have turned â�� the state of California is now AUDITING the hospital - and why â�� because of an effective union saying "NO" to austerity measures being imposed on themâ�¦and not those up at the top. You can visit the National Union of Healthcare Workers website - and up at the top of the web page, you can see that you can contact them â�� why not send them a "Happy MT Week" email, and let them know you are Taking A Union Break, and why â�� how at-home MTs are by and large NOT unionized â�� and HAVE just "rolled over" and taken the big pay cuts and loss of benefits, while the people running MTSOs are doing just fine, thank you.

I'm right with ya! Wednesday is my "Union Break" day. - Im not gonna do a lick of work all day!

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Union break - Working today

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If the MTSOs were not "doing just fine" and went out of business, you wouldn't have a job at all. Unfortunately, there will always be bosses and employees,

Wrong! the work would still be here! - old hand

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Wrong, the work would still exist. The MTSOs are not the originators of the work, the hospitals and clinics are. Odds are, we would all be much better off cutting out the middleman (the MTSOs) -- patients, doctors, hospitals -- and MTs.

For the first 25 years or so of my career, there were no MTSOs, just hospital employees, very small local transcription services that paid quite well, and free lance MTs who contracted directly with the hospital or clinic. MTSOs are not a very good idea, the work conditions are not good and the quality of the work produced is decidedly inferior. Fortunately, it seems that hospitals are beginning to realize this.

The doctor I work for agrees the MTSOs are awful - mt

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I work for an MTSO and also for a psychologist part-time. She does Social Security disability exams and the govt mandates she use a service. She said the service charges double my rate (I charge $3 per page) and the work is substandard. She actually has given me work the service has provided her and asked me to retype it because it is so bad. When I told her how much I get paid by the MTSO (4c per line) she was floored, especially with the rate she pay and now knows the workers aren't getting but a miniscule percentage of it.

The work would still be there, but - SM - Anonymous

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They would hire someone else to do it. Must be nice to be indispensible. Can you name any employer that would let their workers get away with not showing up for work? I've never found a job like that. All I can say is you've got guts.

The work will be there for YOU! - Old Hand

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Let's suppose for a minute, there were no big MTSOs, transcription was no routinely longer outsourced, the threat from India disappeared, and all hospitals thus had to hire back their transcription departments. I know that is a lot of what ifs, but let us suppose for a moment that is the case, as I am trying to make a point here.

If you are good MT, I promise you that you would find a good hospital (or clinic or x-ray) job right away, depending on your skill set.

Before the rise of the big MTSOs who did their sales pitches so well that they could save the hospitals all this money (and then started to send the work to India where it generally isn't done very well) if you knew what you were doing, you could easily get a job.

I had the interesting experience once, circa 1980, of just having moved, barely settled in and had not started my job search; I came from shopping on day to find a note on my door from the director of medical records from a local hospital asking me to call her right away, that she was prepared to offer me a better salary than the other two hospitals in town! (Turned out we had a mutual friend, which is how she heard of me and knew how to contact me, in case you are wondering.) The point again I want to make here is that the hospitals were always always always looking for good MTs! So don't worry, if the MTSOs do start to fade away, if this trend is real and that hospitals are taking control of transcription again, you will find a job and quickly! You are a lot more valuable than you think!

I know I am valuable- see message - Anonymous

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But here is my situation. I work for a large multispecialty group who are in the process of trasitioning to front end ASR and a templated EHR. Over a year ago the MTs were told that probably half the staff was going to be cut when the providers got involved in their own charting. We outsource the majority of our work now but still have a small group of MTs working on site and at home. Starting next month we will no longer be sending work out but it is expected to be absorbed by ASR. I can do it all including x-ray so I'm hoping to be kept around for a while. Regardless, I want to do a good job while I'm there, which includes doing what I'm asked to do and playing by the rules. For me to walk off the job or not show up for work would be cutting my own throat, as I know that under the circumstances they'd tell me not to come back. I have to work and I have to make money and I'm just not willing to put my job on the line. We have valuable skills but trust me there are people waiting in line to take our jobs. At my place there's been a hiring freeze for years and when someone leaves they can never come back. Back in the day hospitals were always hiring and looking for good MTs, but the job is not the same as it once was. The learning curve is not as big as you think it might be with all the computer assisted dictation and transcription taking place these days. Save my work for me while I take a union break? You have got to be kidding.

You don't have a union - so a 'union break' is not very productive - Further More

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You have no union. No union representative is meeting with management to negotiate for better pay, benefits, work conditions, etc. It does no good to have a union break if you have no union to represent you. You will accomplish nothing.

Thanks! No NJAs today!!! finally see a backlog - what is the theme to Apprentice again?

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$$$, $$$, $$$, $$$

Done! ;-) - Great article, by the way!

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Power to the people!!

That is a GOVERNMENT RUN hospital system. Hence the audit. - see message

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The vast majority of us work for MTSOs that are privately owned/run companies.

If you think that you are going to call the MTs to arms to organize some sort of similar protest or a massive MT walkout/strike or even to unionize, you've got your head in the clouds.

Back to work. Thanks for the chuckle.

Why are MTs so wimpy? - SallyField

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Heck, I couldn't even get ONE of half a dozen loudly-complaining MTs to walk down to HR as a GROUP! "I need this job.." and turned around. I told 'em to stop complaining then!! MTs are the WIMPIEST humans I have ever seen.

oh, name-calling again. Take you seriously? Not now, - Not anymore. You lost me.

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