| Professional depoliticisation |
Feminisation of care |
Eighty percent of the members of our profession are female, and the leaders among our colleagues have roles to play as mothers; this is often incompatible with union work (…), because they have children, or they are pregnant, and they give priority to that role (…) and they don’t have the time to carry out other activities, it is difficult; so that is why most of the leadership roles in a career that is predominantly femenine are taken by men (…) (E5) (5:66).
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| Depoliticised university training |
We find it hard to talk about politics. I think it has to do with our training in the nursing schools; when a nurse sets foot in a hospital, she is taught not to say anything, to be correct, not to have a hair out of place, that you have to be impeccable. Nursing has remained like that over the years, it hasn’t evolved (…) (10) (10: 256
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| Chile’s military-political history |
Our generation experienced a political problem in the 1970s, where many people were frightened to participate. I think that is why we don’t take part in movements, only the bravest participate because we are frightened of possible reprisals. There are people who participate actively in political groups, but they don’t tell anyone because they are afraid. This is a generational thing, and in the last few years it has been changing (…) (E4) (4:90).
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| Self-censure |
Nurses don’t fight for their jobs, and so they are losing functions, actions that historically belonged to nursing and that obviously other professionals are taking on, because the nurses don’t want to do it; they don’t want to fight to keep those fields, because it means extra work, because they lack knowledge, lots of reasons, and this finally keeps nurses out of politics, action and the struggle (…) (E14).
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| Political activism |
A personal background connected with activism |
I started doing this work as a girl, in school, in the class student committee, at university, representing people I could help; for that reason, when I left university I joined FENASENF. I think that people feel that they have a responsibility to represent others when we assume these roles, and the same happens in nursing (…) (E7) (7:170).
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| Feeling of belonging to the organisation. |
Feeling part of something always empowers you, feeling that you belong, feeling that there is room for your opinion; besides, the College gives you tools in the form of social contact with other colleagues, and this opens doors, fills you with different experiences that make you feel a bit more secure in your work (…) (E8) (8:185).
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| Leadership |
Leadership is fundamental, it lets you generate a voice that will represent a group of people, that will be expressed through the capacity for dialogue, being conciliatory and flexible, committed, innovative; and all this will enable you to have a group of people that you can represent, and to be the person the authorities contact to negotiate and generate change (…) (E2) (2: 31).
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| Union representation |
One of the benefits of joining a union is without doubt representativity in general; in other words, what people are asking for is consistent with how they feel, and this is being presented in the places where changes and improvements are made, like the bosses, the government and other unions (…) (E10) (10:260).
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| Referents of unionism |
I became involved in activism because when I was an internee, a colleague in paediatric surgery - who didn’t do shifts, she only worked during the day - told me that it was important to belong to a union. She explained why these things had to stop, what our rights were, she gave me those ideas and motivated me to join (…) (E11) (11:287)
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| Professional defence |
Generating changes |
I am a union leader here, and I see how through the Colleges we can get a lot of changes introduced and we can support our colleagues or our work to make them better, providing better health to our patients. This what motivates me most to be a member of the Colleges, giving support to improve policies, and also being an active agent for policy changes at a national level (…) (E13) (13:311). |
| Professional empowerment |
We are part of a professional branch devoted to specialised care, with a theoretical basis and a history which backs us up. We feel that we need a certain degree of differentiated protection or defence for our activities. That is how a group of nurses formed an organisation, and finally these nurses’ associations were formed, but all this comes out of our empowerment as nurses (…) (E9) (9:207)
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| Work needs |
We need improvements in our working conditions, better infrastructure, and we have to go on solving these needs, providing tools and training; and then you see that your environment could be better, and you start to get involved (…) (E9) (9:190).
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| Awareness in nursing care |
Because I see that my patients suffer difficulties, poverty; that is in my environment, it is important to see what is around you, you can’t sit still without doing anything, it is our duty to them to fight to give them the best possible attention (…) (E8) (8:192).
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| Political apathy |
Work load |
I have always felt that the institution rests on the nurses, they are the ones who do their job, who define the task, who draft the protocols, and the rest do nothing. And this is an obstacle to union work - because our work in the hospital is so exhausting, there are few colleagues who have the energy to want to work in the union, as they have this tremendous extra work load (…) (E3) (3:49).
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| Professional individualism |
I feel that individualism is working against us, because there are nurses who don’t put other people first; their first priority is their own place, their own job, their own appointment, even if that means going against other nurses. This hurts me, because we don’t defend one another (…) (E5) (5:99).
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| Lack of interest in participating in union organisations. |
A lack of interest that also results in very low participation; there aren’t many people interested in taking these actions, because there are people who feel that no one is listening to them, that they can’t communicate. So participation is very low, few people go to the meetings, few people respond when they are asked to take part in surveys, marches, assemblies (…) (E13) (13:336)
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Source: Own preparation.