NORTH MICHIGAN HOSPITALS

North Michigan Hospital Collective Bargaining and Strike

North Michigan Hospital Collective Bargaining and Strike

Introduction

Collective bargaining is a process, borrowed from private-sector labor relations between the employer and employee, which govern the employment conditions of a majority of U.S. hospital nurses. In states that permit collective bargaining for nurses and other public employees, the employees usually must agree to utilize the collective bargaining process through an election to choose their representative. Once chosen, the nurses representative, usually a local of one of the two national nurses' unions, proceeds to negotiate the conditions of nurse employment with the employer, almost always a local hospital board. The collective bargaining in the public sector covers all levels of government unions, and including regional and social district. These are often representation of similar legislative, governing bodies. The collective bargaining started in the late 1950s by employees of civic organizations. The preliminary results come out by seeing this that in 1950 and 1955 more than 10 states adopted the collective bargaining. An authorized executive ordinance was signed for granting the public sector to have their unions.

Collective Bargaining

Collective bargaining takes place between an employer, a group of employers, one or more employers' organizations, and one or more organized workers. Collective bargaining serves two purposes. On the one hand, it serves to determine the wages and working conditions of the workers through negotiations between two parties who have acted freely, voluntarily and independently (George, 2010). On the other hand, the collective bargaining enables the employers and workers to define by agreement the rules governing their mutual relations. These two aspects of the negotiation process are closely linked.

Negotiation may cover all aspects of employment like wages, hours, breaks, vacation, leave, working conditions, vocational training, system redundancies, definition of occupational categories, promotions, etc. It also determines rules for the relationship between unions and employers (representatives in the workplace, information and consultation, union card, licenses and permits for union leaders, conflict resolution, etc.). Among other systems that comply with the collective bargaining in street trading since it only meets some of the above functions (Selig, 2009).

The unionization process of North Michigan Hospitals is under the National Labor Relations Act, 29 USC § 151-169 (2000) (NLRA). Particularly, it explains the basis and primary signals of the activity of unionizing, as well as the rules and process for nurses and employers when a union request recognition (DeMitchell, 2004).

There are several reasons for the unionization of the North Michigan Hospitals. Some of the reasons are listed below,

1.Dissatisfaction with existing benefits and wages

2.Apprehension with management's behavior, mainly first line supervisors of Hospital

3.An opinion that the administrator is playing favorites

4.An opinion that administrator are not listening to them

5.An opinion that they do not have any power in the organization (Medoff, 2010)

There is a blatant increase in the collective bargaining process even before the process of negotiation among the employee and the employer starts. The information technology and globalization has drastically changed the rules, requirements, measurements and the dynamics of the mutual ...