An Examination of Unionism and Collective Bargaining for the Nursing Profession

This paper was developed to identify the factors that lead Registered Nurses to choose collective bargaining. A history of collective bargaining is presented showing the evolution of the process for nurses. Studies have found that nurses who choose collective bargaining do so to meet professional ideals, not only economic needs. Some of these ideals include increased autonomy, more involvement in decision making, and better control over the quality of practice. Two case studies were explored involving strike situations. It was found that the nurses were striking for economic benefits such as wages and job security but that this was a small part of the dispute. Nurses also wished for an increased voice in structuring their jobs such as workload requirements and quality of practice. In both situations management concerns did not coincide with nursing concerns which lead to extended contract talks. The final section of the paper compares how a union contract hospital and a nonunion hospital each meet the concerns of their nurses. The results of this comparison are surprisingly similar.Master of Public AdministrationPublic AdministrationUniversity of Michigan-Flinthttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143353/1/Kassmann.pd