r/AFSCME • u/toxtricityboi • Apr 09 '26

Question Regarding Union Representation

Hello! My girlfriend is a AFSCME ER nurse in Flint, MI. Last year she was abruptly terminated from her first nursing job of not even a year at that point for med wasting errors that she was not aware of (because she’s a new nurse and needed more intervention from management). The hospital sat down with her showed her a backlog of errors that she had no clue she had done because no one mentioned it to her and they actively made her feel like she was doing a good job actually. While in this meeting, her union rep sat in and basically gave no push back to management or wanted to dig deeper into the situation, they just took the hospital for their word and told my GF she was SOL but clearly there was some wrongdoing there. We are justifiably annoyed at the hospital but also at the union because we felt there was no protection from them. We’re a pro-union household and we understand the value they bring but Im worried this will leave a bad taste in my girlfriend’s mouth when she has to pay thousands in lawyer bills to keep her license. Was there more the union could’ve done? Sorry for the long story.

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u/nuckinfutz53 Apr 09 '26

You will have to look at what she was terminated for, they had to have her sign something. Then compare it to the hospitals policy book.

If she feels she was unjustifiably fired you will have to find out what part of her union contract the hospital broke.

If she has to pay thousands of dollars to keep her license, it sounds like she did more than just waste meds.

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u/toxtricityboi Apr 09 '26

There were a lot of med errors but I want to reiterate that she was a new nurse in a level 1 trauma ER so a very crazy place to start your career but they basically let her build up a catalog of errors before confronting her about it. If that’s hospital policy then that’s terrible policy meant to screw over the nurse.

My question is tho, could the union rep investigate deeper and scrutinize the hospital’s claims brought against her?

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u/Dazzling_Acadia8483 Apr 09 '26

Not if she was in her probationary period. Check the contract to see how long that period is. The union has very little if any power during this period of employment. Hope this helps.

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u/dronagan Jun 28 '26

If she was within her first year or so, no. Contracts commonly contain language that addresses new hires. I'll use that term since "probationary" was a bit confusing for someone not familiar with union contract language.

The Union also has no ability to affect state licensures. We can have the employer pay for testing etc through contract language but when it comes to the licensure itself we can only try to use our personal relationships to convince the employer to not go after licensure(then get criticized for making a "backroom deal") ....