Mhr 6751 Labor Relations and Collective Bargaining Final Paper

Keeping the American Professionals Union Out

Micah B. Dalcoe

Columbia Southern University

As the U.S. life expectancy continues to increase, the health care industry exponentially grows. The life expectancy rate in the United States has increased by 1.5 years in the last decade to about 78 years (“Life expectancy reaches,” 2009). This increase in life expectancy is attributed in part by the growth and improvement of the health care industry. In 2010, $1.75 trillion in revenues was reported along with more than 14 million people reported as being employed in the medical career field (“The health and,” 2013). A large amount of this industry is dominated by nurses. Nurses are the primary point of contact for patients is often the nurse. Nurses duties include performing frequent patient evaluations, injury care, phlebotomy, out-patient care plans, and patient progress checking (“Nursing job descriptions,” 2013).

Although doctors and hospital admin are important to hospital operations, nurses are critical in the support and skills they provide in accomplishing the mission of providing stellar patient care to its customers. No hospital can operate without the contributions of nurses, and for this reason, the hospital must work in good-faith to meet the needs of the nurses. The result of failing at this requirement spells disaster, starting with unionization. The recommendation of the human resource office is to avoid unionization for the good of the nurses and the overall quality of hospital operations.

The effects of unionization on the hospital could be crippling for both nurses and the organization as a whole. Union dues and initiation fees are typically quite expensive. Dues are used by the union to pay union officials and conduct official union business. Members are assessed fees that range from 2% of their monthly pay check to 5%. There is often also an initiation fee to pay at the beginning of the membership process (Keller, 2012). For example, union dues...