Collective Bargaining Discussion
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Week 11: Collective Bargaining
Otisha Dawson-Morrison
Walden University
NURS6201: Leadership in Nursing and Healthcare
February 4, 2019
My Experience Working in a Unionized Setting
The purpose of labor unions is to ensure management treat staff fairly and provide them with benefits (Ash, Seago & Spetz, 2014). That’s why I favor unions. I recently became a nurse manager with a large primary care organization. However, my prior experiences have been in non-management roles. In my most recent position, I was a unionized nurse. I appreciated the union. We were able to negotiate modest wages, improve work conditions, and limit disrespectful dialogue by management when interacting with staffs. For example, we provided psychiatric case management services for a severely mentally ill population. For several months, we either had a psychiatrist who was available 4 hours a week or no psychiatric at all for the 24-hour program. We worked very hard to care for and keep our symptomatic patients safe under these conditions. We frequently pleaded with management to get us a full-time psychiatrist to service our patients. Finally, we presented our demands to the union. Not only did we get a full-time psychiatrist, but we received first aid kits from our vehicles as well as seat covers. What I didn’t understand is why management was so upset with us enlisting the support of the union when we for months made them aware of the patient and staff safety concerns and work conditions.
The union allowed us to have a voice. According to Marquis and Huston, nurse managers feel that healthcare organizations differ from industrial organizations (2017, p. 587). My thought is that these nurse managers believe that healthcare workers have better work conditions than industrial workers. In my experience, this is far from true. Healthcare workers are some of the most over-worked groups. The most significant difference I perceive is that healthcare workers receive higher wages and are respected more by the public than industrialized workers, but our work conditions can be just as offensive.
Transitioning from Unionized nurse to Nurse Manager
My current place of employment is not unionized. However, as a nurse manager, I still believe that staff should consider unionizing if their needs or the patient’s needs are not being met. My personal goal as a new manager and a leader within this organization is to improve current policies and develop new systems that meet the needs of subordinates while protecting patients and sustaining the organization. Unfair practices will lead to unionization (Marquis & Huston, 2017, p. 590). If a union is organized, I do not think I would be against it as a manager. The union is to protect staff. My only concern would be strikes and walk-offs. The patients will be adversely impacted by strikes and walk-offs. Nurse work conditions are patient care conditions (Manthous, 2014, p. 393). Therefore, my goal as the nurse manager is to ensure my teams working conditions are supreme. I’m looking to increase paid time off hours as a means of reducing staffs stress levels, establish open communication between myself and those I manage and create a mutually respectful environment. I believe patient receive better care from employees that are happy in their roles.
References
Ash, M., Seago, A. and Spetz, J. (2014). What do health care unions do? A response to manthous. Medical care, 52(5), 393-397. Doi:10.1097/MLR.0000000000000124.
Manthous, A. (2014). Labor unions in medicine. The intersection of patient advocacy and self-advocacy. Medical care. 52(5), 387-392.
Marquis, B. L., & Huston, C. J. (2017). Leadership roles and management functions in nursing: Theory and application (9th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins.
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS
Discussion Questions (DQ)
Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation
Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the com ments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week. Collective Bargaining Discussion
APA Format and Writing Quality
Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes
I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy
For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy
The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading. Collective Bargaining Discussion
Communication
Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.
Collective Bargaining Discussion