A recent Supreme Court decision got little play in the news, but it is one
of the most devastating for health care organizing in recent years.
Hospitals have often tried to undermine union organizing of nurses by giving
registered nurses nominal supervisory duties with no real power, then
claiming they were supervisors ineligible for unionization. The
Clinton-appointed NLRB had ruled in a key case, Kentucky Community Care,
that "ordinary professional or technical judgment in directing less-skilled"
by employees would not thereby classify those employees as supervisors and
therefore bar them from being able to unionize. This decision was applied
to registered nurses and was an important decision protecting the rights of
registered nurses.
The 6th Circuit overturned the decision of the NLRB and the Supreme Court on
May 29th by the usual 5-4 split affirmed the decision to bar unionization of
registered nurses with even nominal oversight of other nurses.
See NLRB v. KENTUCKY RIVER COMMUNITY CARE, INC., etal
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&v ol=000
&invol=99-1815 ========== While, yes this case does suck for union drives, RN's are sort of in the catbird seat over the next few decades simply by virtue of the fact that there is an extreme shortage of nurses acrsoss the US and there's no sign of things getting better. Many health care watchers already consider hospitals to be in serious staffing crisis as many RN's are retiring and the schools aren't sending enough grad's onto "the market". Many RN's are burnt out, big time, and things are in one of those "vicious downward spirals" that econs. talk about. While the decision won't ameliorate the domination/exploitation that goes on with health care workers, hospital administrators are being forced to be kinder and gentler - to the extent they can be under the current system, the assholes - due to the shortages.
Ian [my mom's a retired nurse]