Case Study—The Case of the Misguided Supervisors
Question
Writing Assignment :
Read The Case of the Misguided Supervisors in Chapter 14 of your text book. Use the Argosy University online library for additional research, and do the following in a Word document:
o In 1–2 paragraphs, summarize the case and your research that relates to the case.
o In 2 pages, answer the following:
• Why would an organization care whether its supervisors speak in favor of or against union representation? Explain and justify your answer.
• How could the hospital in this example have prepared its supervisors to understand their proper role during an organizing campaign? Explain and justify your answer.
With your answers demonstrate that your understanding of the concepts is thorough and complete. Support your assertions with evidence, citing the appropriate sources.
Apply the APA current guidelines to your work and use at least three resources in your response.
Clearly and concisely summarized the case in 1–2 paragraphs.
Identified, explained, and justified why an organization would care whether its supervisors speak in favor of or against union representation.
Identified, explained, and justified how the hospital in this example could have prepared its supervisors to understand their proper role during an organizing campaign.
Applied current APA guidelines and supported assertions with evidence by using appropriate sources. Demonstrated a thorough and complete understanding of the concepts.
Answer ( 1 )
Introduction
The case is about an improper understanding of the nursing supervisors also called as charge nurses related to their role in the organization of the union at the California hospital. When the cards were distributed by the union for indicating their desire to carry out a representation election many of the charge nurses took part in the meetings and reflected that their desire to join the union. Few of them all also encouraged other nurses reporting them in the hospital for supporting the union.
The hospital found that the charge nurses were supporting the union in spite of the fact they were supervisors in the hospital. As a result, the charge nurses pulled back their support to the union, and they further encouraged the nurses who were not supervisors to vote against the representation. When the election took place the union got a victory in their representation.
After this, the hospital challenged their election because of the activity of the charge nurses before election. But in spite of that, the union was being upheld by both NLRB and the court.
The NLRB in 2014 has provided guidelines for conducting the elections in the union, and it clearly mentioned that the employer, employee and the union must get information related to their role in the election timely.
Question 1
An organization cares whether its supervisor votes for a favor or goes against the union representation as it is evident that there are marked impact on the productivity of the nurses from the history of unionization in the health sector.
It has been argued that the union can affect both positively and negatively. The worker productivity and the product quality was found to increase as a result of the greater voice of workers because of the union as by Freeman and Medoff(1984). However, it is also true from the findings of the researchers that the product might decline because of the restrictions imposed by the union in the workplace rules. This results into reduced investments in skill and little employer incentives for screening the better workers as given by Lee (1978); Wessels(1994); Card (1996).
According to Ash and Seago (2004), the hospitals where the nurses are unionized the likelihood for the death of heart patients was 5.5% less as in comparison to those hospitals where the nurses were not unionized. However, Grabowski and Chen (2015) had found no impact of unionization on the quality of the care being provided by the nurses in hospitals.
Also, the work environment related to the nursing like the length of the shifts of the nurses, levels in the staffing chart and the rates of retention are also likely to change due to unions Aiken et al. (2011). The mechanisms connecting the activity of the union and the productivity of the nurses including skill upgrading have been studied by Lewis (1963).
Therefore unions affect the crucial and important aspects of the hospital work environment like the involvement of the nurses in the governance of the hospital, a professional developmental process which is ongoing, relations of the physicians and the nurses and fair process to address the disputes of the nurses and supervisors.
Question 2
The unions in health care sector have declined in the last 20 years in the US. The hospital could have prepared its supervisors so they would have understood their proper role during the organizing campaign in this example by taking the following measures:
• They could have notified them their roles and responsibilities in the union prior to the election and the processes related to its fair conduct.
• They could have made them aware of the prospects and the legal elements of the union at the joining of the staff in the hospital.
• Any third party involvement always benefits the employees and employers when the disputes have to be settled. This could have been adopted in this case also.
• The hospital can train a specific leader and management for the union so as to ensure better procedures being carried out in the union elections and representations.
• The hospitals could have made their nurses more engaged in the union process so that they can better understand the election process and also feel their work being noticed.
• The hospitals must learn to honor the contract of the employees and employers so as to avoid conflict and ensure smooth functioning of the hospitals and proper care of the patients at the hospitals.
• The hospitals could have tried to remain focused on their objectives so as to get the best from the union elections and also in terms of the worker’s participation and representation in the union.