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To: Angus MacGregor

I don't think we'll have a problem finding people to do jobs 2 through 5. It's just a matter of the market finding the right wage.

I doubt we'll have any long-term problem with truck drivers. The truck drivers I know seem to enjoy the work reasonably well. The problems are in the wages and the hours, and those things can be adjusted in the marketplace. We'll always have a supply of men with independent streaks who are happy to spend their days on the open road, if they can make a decent living doing so.

The problem with nursing is that so much of the job is in the public sector and unionized, so wages and working conditions adjust very slowly. Unions tend to do a terrible job of addressing working conditions, because they seek solutions that could be applied to everyone.

For example, a good nurse might propose that certain nurses be allowed to use their judgment in how often they check in on patients. A good nurse might know, for example, that Old Mr. Jones has to be checked on every fifteen minutes whereas young Ms. Smith is going to be okay with checks at lesser freqency. But the union would never agree to a policy where good nurses have different rules than bad nurses, and the hospital is never going to agree to a policy that gives such discretion to the worst nurse in the hospital. The upshot is all nurses have to abide by rules that are only appropriate for the very worst nurse in the hospital.

The union may get an agreement for regular 15-minute breaks or something, but such a move hardly addresses the real issues in nursing.


55 posted on 03/06/2006 7:06:50 AM PST by Our man in washington
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To: Our man in washington
"Unions tend to do a terrible job of addressing working conditions, because they seek solutions that could be applied to everyone."

I'm no fan of Unions, but the workplace dynamic you describe occurs in non-Union shops as well. It's just one of the known problems of large organizations; very often (but not always), the system must be optimized for the weakest link in the chain. The enforcing function is the potential for litigation and the resulting impact on getting insurance.

There doesn't have to be a Union within 100 miles, just a lawyer and your insurance company.
75 posted on 03/06/2006 8:42:06 AM PST by indthkr
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