Intercultural conflict occurs frequently in both our society and in our everyday lives. Lately, I've been following the story of the Minnesota Nurses Association strike in the news. I'm using the term intercultural quite broadly here, but I do believe that nurses and hospital management groups have slightly different cultures. These groups see different aspects of patient care; the nurses work with the patients directly and value providing quality care while the hospital management needs to balance both the quality of patient care and the financial state of the hospital. Therefore these groups have different values when it comes to running a hospital. Also, many hospital managers are doctors, and doctors belong to a different economic class than nurses. Belonging to a different economic class, and therefore to a different cultural group, could affect the discussion about wages and benefits.
In case you aren't familiar with the nurses' strike, I'll give a summary of recent events. This is the biggest nurses' strike in the history of the national nurses' union. It affects 12,000 nurses in 14 different hospitals across the Twin Cities. This spring, the hospitals were renegotiating the nurses' contracts, and conflict arose between the nurses and hospital management over wages, benefits, and patient care. The hospitals have proposed annual raises of 0 to 2 percent; they also want to cut benefits and pensions. Nurses desire raises of 3.5 to 4 percent annually and do not agree with the benefit cuts. Although wages are an issue in this debate, the nurses are more concerned with providing quality patient care. The nurses claim that the hospitals are dangerously understaffed, with too many patients assigned to one nurse. To fix this problem, nurses have proposed a fixed nurse-to-patient staffing ratio; the hospitals have rejected this plan, saying it is too rigid to be practical. When negotiation talks were not producing any results, the nurses decided to strike. The strike began this morning and is supposed to last for 24 hours. However, hospitals have hired replacement nurses from around the country and may not want the striking nurses to return to work tomorrow. The replacement nurses are being paid up to $130 an hour for their work and for crossing the picket lines, so the strike is very costly for the hospitals, which may force them to return to negotiations.
In the beginning, the nurses' union and the hospital management attempted to sit down together, discuss the issues, and reach a compromise that would please everyone. However, both groups appear to be using dominating styles during negotiation. When a group uses the dominating conflict style, they view the situation as win or lose and refuse to compromise. This group has a high concern for self and low concern for others. I believe both the hospital management and the nurses' union are using dominating styles because they refuse to compromise on the issues, which is what lead to the strike.
Hopefully, as the strike continues, both groups will realize that the dominating style will accomplish nothing in this situation. Both groups need to change to the compromising style in order to find a solution. In the compromising style, both groups give up something to find an acceptable solution. I believe that this style would work best because it is impossible to meet the demands of both groups simultaneously. Therefore, each group must give up something to reach a solution. Perhaps they could settle for a 2.5 or 3 percent raise, and instead of having fixed staffing ratios, the hospital could agree to hire a certain number of new nurses to fix the understaffing problem. If both groups are willing to compromise, the strike can end and the nurses can return to work.
What is your opinion of unions and strikes? Do you think that striking is an effective way to improve working conditions or is there a better way?
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As I am not completely informed of how a union works and to my basic knowledge of them, I think that unions allow people the opportunity to voice their opinions and feelings when they don't have the power to do so. I think that is how strikes are seen too, and this is why people use this technique. I think that strikes can be very effective in communicating a message, especially one that is very important to the people involved in a strike. I know that some strikes in the past have been so effective, they have created change and got what they wanted in the end. So, yes I think when used properly striking can be an effective way to make your voice heard.
ReplyDeleteI once thought unions were helpful in promoting workers rights and in gaining fair and equitable treatment of employees. In the US, I don't know that unions serve that purpose any longer. I think it has become to political, too large, and I don't think their expectations of what is fair and equitable are realistic sometimes, especially in times of economic hardship. With that said, I don't agree with some companies operations and decisions either regarding bonuses for upper management while they lay off, reduce benefits, or cut pay for the "workers" either.
ReplyDeleteI think a striking is an effective way to improve working conditions because to let employers know what workers think is important. However, like this case, striking is too risky for both employers and workers. Employers have to pay the high cost to solve the problem and workers have a risk of loose their job. I think the best way is solve the problem in a conference. It is sometimes too ideal but both sould talk calmly.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I have learned about unions in my econ class. I think that in general being in a effective union is a good thing. strike can be effective if the people and what is wanted to be gained is reasonable.
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