MAY DAY and NURSES

Today is May Day, normally a day i always book off from work along with Labour Day .
As a nurse on the frontlines in a hospital I work Christmas and New Years, most statutory holidays and have for decades but never May Day or Labour Day.
But today I am going in to work the evening shift and before that I am going to a Joint Occupational Health and Safety meeting as the representative for my union/for my co-workers.
Without going into details , my work is becoming more dangerous for frontline workers.
This week a co-worker was assaulted - a woman very close to retirement. Unfortunately this is an all too common event.
And my "official " job today is to ask what is going to be done about this. How are you going to protect us to the maximum degree possible? I can anticipate the answers - and the answers will be unacceptable - and from there I will sit and feel immense responsibility and have to decide what to do next.
A co-worker said to me last evening " I always feel better when you are here-you speak for us." Another co-worker said to me " I don't understand why do they not care about us and our safety-we are everything-where would they be if we were not here?" I tried to explain to her in some ways it is like a war. There are generals who make decisions and there are the workers , footsoldiers who are expected to obediently follow orders and go out and get injured and killed and not to question and not to disobey-footsoldiers in the everyday world of working to live.
I think it is harder for nurses and teachers and social workers etc to understand this sometimes because we are drawn to our work generally because we care-it is our job to care. Particularly in female dominated occupations we reflect and in some ways reproduce the role of women in the family, in the domestic or reproductive sphere of economic activity. And we are discouraged from caring about ourselves, standing up for ourselves and fighting back when we are abused.
So there is a reality gap , a contradiction that arises in the minds of some of my co-workers (not all-many of us have it straight.) They simply cannot understand why the employers are not outraged when they get injured and why the employer does not just say outright -this is unacceptable.
I look at the fear in their eyes and the weariness . I see signs of mild to even severe unacknowledged post traumatic stress-how we startle when we hear a noise, how we hold back the fear and the tears -how we are still able to laugh with each other.
Another worker said "there is only one good thing that has happened here and that is that we get closer and care about each other more and learn how to support each other better." Just another way of saying there is solidarity despite it all.
I have talked for years against the team concept - tried to articulate the contradictions and expose the illusions-I have even told my boss outright that my idea of team and his are totally different-but no talk can expose the bull.... real events will do that better.
There is a tradition of "debriefing" with the management after a critical event. I was so happy when last night we told them no we will do it ourselves or find our own way to deal with our hurt and our anger. We talked about how it was not safe -because victims feel guilt always and always say "what could I have done to prevent this from happening-maybe it is my fault." And without fail that is exploited by the management-crafty as they are .

What may seem obvious to me -is not obvious to so many and it is my job to explain and to sow seeds of protest and introduce more questions and point out how we have so much in common with workers in factories and in the public sector everywhere, and how we have to fight back and organize and push our union leadership to do the job right.And if they will not-then maybe just maybe we will have to do it ourselves.
This time we may not be successful- but we do not forget. Now we face layoffs and it will get worse . We know that.
So i will get ready for my safety meeting - and i will muster up not my courage but the need to channel and contain my rage and my emotions and see what happens .
As I write I feel the tears coming to my eyes-delayed tears because since Wednesday evening I have been too consumed with rage to cry.
I will not cry in front of the boss-but today I will do my best to honour MAY DAY even in the smallest way possible.