PROFESSIONALISM AND COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN NURSING

One of the most contentious areas of unionization has been the health care field. The potential for work stoppages in this area tends to worry the average citizen more that does such potential in almost any other area. In a unanimous decision in 1991, however, the United States Supreme Court upheld the right of professional nurses to form collective bargaining units in hospitals and other health care institutions (Blottin & Brent, 1994, p. 9). Thus, regardless of what some members of the general public may think, regardless of the opposition of hospital administrators, and regardless of the misgivings of some professional nurses, collective bargaining is a reality in professional nursing. This research explores the issue of professionalism in nursing as the concept of professionalism may be affected by collective bargaining by nurses.

It was not until 1974 that the National Labor Relations Act was amended to extend collective bargaining rights to all employees in all health care institutions. From the time of the enactment of the Taft-Hartley Amendment to the Act in 1947 to 1974, collective bargaining rights had been denied to employees of nonprofit hospitals, although the employees of proprietary hospitals had such rights. With the great majority of American hospitals in the nonprofit classification, this restriction meant that most of the country's nurses were denied collect