RNSG 2138 Professional Nursing Concepts Student Midterm Blueprint Summer 2018

RNSG 2138 Professional Nursing Concepts Student Midterm Blueprint Summer 2018 1- Professionalism/Nursing Organization and Unions Pros/Cons to unions Management of care Planning Analysis Professionalism PowerPoint & Lecture A. Positive ▪ Continuity of care ▪ Continual professional growth ▪ Active in professional organizations ▪ Providing a safe patient environment B. Negative • Unsafe patient care • Negative patient outcomes • Suspension or loss of personal professional license • Consequences in criminal and/or civil law • Violations of current practice standards *When faced with a conflict in the work setting that creates difficulty for a professional nurse to provide safe patient care, the nurse, as a patient advocate, evaluates taking action to resolve the issue either through work-based organizational structures or pursuit of nursing or non-nursing union involvement. 2- Professionalism/Nursing Organization and Unions Managers role during union organizing Pg 593, marquis The Managers’ Role During Union Organizing Because of the health-care industry’s movement toward unionization, most nurses will probably be involved with unions in some manner during their careers. Managers who are not employed in a unionized health-care organization should anticipate that one or more unions may attempt to organize their nurses within the next few years. Because the NLRA provides union protections only to employees, a supervisor has no right under the NLRA to form or participate in a union (Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO, 2001–2016). Nurse-managers, as legally defined hospital “supervisors,” are legal spokespersons for the hospital. As such, the NLRB closely monitors what they may say and do. Prohibited managerial activities include threatening employees, interrogating employees, promising employee rewards for cessation of union activity, and spying on employees. This does not mean that these activities do not occur. For example, a complaint was filed with the NLRB in 2014, alleging that employees who participated in a June 2014 picket (a legally protected concerted activity) to draw attention to “potentially unsafe staffing conditions” were either fired, experienced revoked work agreements, or forced to work weekends by the hospital they picketed (“NLRB Hearing,” 2015). Following a 4-day hearing, the NLRB issued a complaint finding that the hospital had engaged in an illegal pattern of harassment and retaliation against hospital staff for their participation in the picketing. 3- Professionalism/Nursing Organization and Unions. National Labor Relations Act Pg. 269 The Nurse as Supervisor: Eligibility for Protection Under the National Labor Relations Act The NLRA establishes certain protections for private-sector employees who want to form or join a labor union. These protections do not, however, extend to supervisors. The NLRA defines a supervisor as “any individual having authority, in the interest of the employer, to hire, transfer, suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward, or discipline other employees, or responsibly to direct them, or to adjust their grievances, or effectively to recommend such action, if in connection with the foregoing, the exercise of such authority is not of a merely routine or clerical nature, but requires the use of independent judgment” (Matthews, 2010, para. 12). However, several 2006 NLRB rulings deemed that charge nurses might also be considered supervisors because they are responsible for the coordination and provision of patient care throughout a unit (Matthews, 2010). Even part-time charge nurses were so labeled. The 2006 NLRB decisions—collectively known as the Kentucky River cases, after the name of the 2005 Supreme Court decision that sent the issue back to the NLRB—expanded the category of “supervisor” dramatically. The Court found that occasional guidance to other employees was enough to identify someone as a supervisor (Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO, 2001–2016). This finding has been contested legally since