Ask Lemmy

In a vacuum, yes. The problem is that when, say, chip fabricators go on strike, orders for microchips don't get fulfilled on time and the company loses money. When SAG goes on strike for months, movies get delayed, and people usually cheer them on in solidarity. When MEDICAL professionals go on strike en mass, people will die... Quickly, in some cases. People say they support us, and I get a free breakfast once a year at Denny's during Nurse's Week, but nobody's going to cheer on the picket line outside when their dad or grandmother is INSIDE, sitting in their own poop, or not being fed, or having respiratory distress.

You don't go into nursing for the money or easy work. You don't even do it because it's "just a job to pay the bills" because there's way easier ways to make this little money. You do it to because you're the kind of person who is more fulfilled by helping a stranger than by helping yourself, and those people are not ok with risking the life and safety of their patients over a shift differential. A LOT of nurses would cross the line to help them anyway, which would negate the whole effort.. It sucks, but that's it.

I've been a nurse for about 10 years now after getting out of the military, so I have some perspective on this, but I don't know what the way forward is without letting a couple of vulnerable people die to catalyze change in the field.