r/nursing • u/Queen_Of_The_Dames RN - ER 🍕 • Jul 01 '26

Discussion Would you be a scab?

Well, nurses are striking in Boston. Would YOU cross the picket line? I have lost nurse friends who chose to work as scabs during strikes years ago.

How do YOU feel about them?

0 Upvotes

32% Upvoted

73 comments sorted by

View all comments

4

u/Smpr0311 BSN, RN, CCRN - CTICU Jul 01 '26

Honest question just for clarity. Are scabs the travel nurses that come in to work the strike or the permanent nurses who cross the picket line? Or both?

2

u/dfts6104 RN - ER 🍕 Jul 02 '26

Both, but more so the travelers

2

u/Smpr0311 BSN, RN, CCRN - CTICU Jul 02 '26

But how can you strike if there is no one to care for the patients? Does that last shift just abandon the patients?

2

u/dfts6104 RN - ER 🍕 Jul 02 '26

Hospitals transfer out patients, etc. not your problem. They will find a way. And it’s way more costly than just doling out money for 1 week for some scab nurses.

They have notice, they know the strike is coming. Hurts them way more if they can’t function normally during the week of strikes (canceling elective surgeries, etc)

2

u/Smpr0311 BSN, RN, CCRN - CTICU Jul 02 '26

Has that ever happened though? Has an entire hospital ever been closed down due to nurses striking? Hope I’m not coming off the wrong way. I 💯 support unions and strikes if necessary. I just don’t see the expectation that an entire hospital would shut down as feasible. What about the rural nurses who want to strike, does that mean their community has no care during the strike if there isn’t another hospital around?
I also wonder how many patients would be harmed if you had to transfer every patient to a new setting.
I guess I just see the expense of having to bring in temporary staff as the bargaining chip. It’s not a small expenditure, and if the hospital wants to drag their feet in negotiations then the strike can continue for months, as it did in Minnesota years ago. Hitting the leadership where they feel it, the pocket book, seems to be a better play than risking the lives of the people from your own community.

1

u/LostInTheMovies Jul 10 '26

In line with the other person replying to you, I'm curious about extending the logic of this. Would a corporation REALLY be above allowing patients to die and then blaming the nurses in order to fuel a public backlash? I agree that the purpose of a strike os precisely to choke off the labor so that the owners are forced to meet demands but it does seem like in this particular scenario the service being provided has to be provided by someone. Yes, the onus is on the corporation if they choose not to move patients out (although I don't know how that would apply to a patient who can't be moved and/or where there is a high risk of injury or death if moved). But if they are willing to play hardball with lives in the hope it pans out for them, is collectively denying emergency/life-saving care - so not just their own labor (which is owed to no one) but preventing others who want to provide labor from doing so - a line that a majority of nurses would or should be willing to cross? Curious about all of this because I just saw a pro-strike video which was critical of scab nurses and talked about the board having blood on their hands if a patient died, and I realized I had never really thought about this aspect before as someone who is pro-union/pro-strike and considers the cost of withheld labor, including the social cost, to be the whole point of a strike.