Nurse Unions free essay sample

Pros cons, impact on health care field, nurses views, decentralization of authority, pay, motivation, communication. An increasingly important labor-management issue in the nursing profession is that of unionization. Todays hospitals are under intense pressure to contain costs. This translates into the need to reduce labor-related expenses, since staffing costs are a hospitals largest budgetary expenditure, and nurses comprise a significant percentage of hospital staff. More and more nurses, experiencing widespread anxiety over job security, are turning to unions to address their grievances. Nurses in private and nonprofit hospitals and nursing homes have the right to organize for purposes of collective bargaining subject to the terms outlined in the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Despite their legal right to do so, many nurses have not chosen to unionize. Estimates are that approximately 18 percent of nurse and service workers in acute care hospitals are union