Jasmine, I liked the points you made about collective bargaining. We, nurses, stand strong when we are together and have common goals to improve our practice. For years nursing wages have not been updated regardless of the job market and the enhanced patient needs and requirements. Other health care occupations had their salaries increased which is the case with pharmacists (Lovell, 2006), but nursing wages have not been touched. Lovell states that one of the reasons might be that 92% of the nurses are female, so such unfair treatment can be considered discrimination. That fact makes it even more urgent and necessary to have a collective voice and negotiate the changing of working conditions, benefits and nurse/patient ratio which is getting worse by the day jeopardizing the safety of care (Budd, Warino, Patton, 2014).
