Key issues causing hospital employees to seek unionization include wages and benefits, job security, supervision, staffing, and interprofessional relationships. The board should address these issues through board policy, and it should monitor the implementation of that policy in several key areas.

Governing Board↗

PubMed1981

Court gives hospitals an important victory on union bargaining units.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Hospitals↗

PubMed1979

Patients, not unions, first concern of hospitals.

Although the law regarding employee organizational rights in health care institutions has been in a state of flux since 1974, it is now clear that patient care generally takes precedence over employees' rights to organize on hospital premises.

Health Facility Environment↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Compensation: bonus versus wage increase.

Health care facilities with increased revenues that wish to give year-end lump-sum bonuses must comply with fair labor standards to avoid recalculating regular pay and incurring retroactive overtime liability. Discretionary bonuses are excluded from the regular rate of pay. Circumstances in each case determine if a bonus is discretionary and thus excluded from the regular rate of pay. A "discretionary" bonus is one that the facility did not promise or announce and that employees have no reason to view as regular pay. To ensure their bonuses' discretionary status, facilities should not announce the bonus until just before or when they give it and should not discuss it with employee groups. Records should show that the facility (1) never before granted such a bonus, (2) had no plan to do so, (3) had not informed employees of it, and (4) has given the bonus only because of unexpected and probably nonrecurring profits.

Personnel Administration, Hospital↗