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Roles of Nursing Unions

Morgan Burke

Collaborative Bachelor of Nursing, Sault College

BSCN1056: Professional Growth

Jennifer Flood

October 27, 2020

The Role of Nursing Unions

A union is an organization that brings together and provides a voice for members with

concerns about their profession. The role of nursing unions and collective bargaining is

multilateral. What began as a professional organization in 1939 to negotiate an employment

contract has now expanded to numerous agencies representing the nursing profession

(Jensen,2015).The expansion promotes collaboration among organizations, which allows

strength through unity. Nursing unions have established standards, wages, and protection of the

members and their working conditions, and the most important feature of a nursing profession,

the patients. Gerardo (2017) noted that currently, no single labour union represents nurses

nationwide, but the most active nurses unions in Canada include the Ontario Nurses’ Association

(ONA), and the Canadain Federation of Nurses unions (CFNA).

This paper will conclude how nursing unions act to improve the influences that affect a

nurses working conditions, economic impact, and the quality patient care a nurse provides.

Improving Economic Welfare

Economic welfare is considered a broad term measured through indicators that reflect the

welfare of a population such as job satisfaction, income, and levels of happiness (Pettinger,

2017). McKenzie (1983) describes applied economic welfare as a factor that makes a consumer

better off than the available alternatives. ONA provides each member with a collective

agreement that acts as a protection of equal rights regardless of ethnicity,sexual orientation or

disability. They have been successful in a number of wins and settlements from workplaces

across Ontario. The most notable win is a 13 year long battle to support equity pay rights for
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registered nurses working in the female dominated profession (Ontario Nurses Association,

2019). The pay equity act is a legislation that allows men and women to receive pay for work of

equal value therefore, a woman can achieve pay equity even when no male counterparts are

involved in their workplace.

Achieving equal pay was a crucial step for the ONA union to perform as it helps a nurses

economic welfare status. The increased pay affects a nurses motivation, level of income and they

will in turn believe their work ethic is validated therefore improving their job satisfaction

economic welfare status.

Eliminating Threatening Working Conditions

A nurses’ unionized environment understands the greatest health risks and barriers that

influence a nurses health. When awareness is raised about an issue they develop procedures and

policies directed towards minimizing the risks and dangers to the health of a nurse. If a union is

unable to alter an issue they will advocate for the nurses rights and bring attention to the issue

through media outlets to influence a change from the government. The uncertainty and risks

associated with the coronavirus pandemic the nursing staff face a much greater threat in terms of

exposure. Many of the unions have continually urged the government to ensure all nurses have

proper protocols, and be fully trained and equipped with personal protective equipment. As of

March 23, 2020 the CFNA published a position statement addressing nurses concerns with point

of care risk assessment and personal protective equipment. The statement provides a hierarchy

plan that explains the steps needed to be made to best protect the nursing staff. Around the same

time ONA also released a statement accusing the government of diminishing guidelines

regarding the extent of personal protective equipment needed for front-line workers. They

acknowledged the understanding of conflict evidence about how the Corona Virus is spread, but
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added it is a crucial precautionary principle to protect our front-line health care workers

regardless of the conflicting evidence (Ontario Nurses Association, 2020).

Providing quality care to patients

A nurse's ability to provide high quality care to patients is a key value of nursing. One of

the elements that ensures high quality care is resources provided to nurses. When the necessary

resources are in decline so is the quality care outcomes nurses can provide. A union allows

members to find a collective voice and speak for what they believe is important to their

profession. It allows nurses to have control over their professional practice which is crucial for

the patients environment, especially during a nurse staff shortage crisis. In a recent study

involving the correlation between mandatory overtime and the quality care of a patient “both

errors and near-errors are more likely to occur where hospital staff nurses work twelve hours or

more during a shift” and “working overtime increased the odds of making at least one error,

regardless of how long the shift was originally scheduled.”(Clark & Clark, 2006) . The Michigan

Nurses Association suggests mandatory overtime reduces the attentiveness of nurses to changes

involving their patients' medical condition, which leads to medication errors and infections

(Clark & Clark, 2006). Although the study was not conducted in Canada it is evident that the

issue is not only occurring solely in the United States, it is a worldwide issue.

The CFNU has recognized how necessary it is to identify the current issues related to the

nursing workload and quality patient care. They have provided clear models, mechanisms and

recommendations to policy makers in order to combat this issue. Some recommendations include

providing “targeted funding for quality nursing workplace initiatives directed at improving

nursing workload and patient outcomes, and enforcing the accountability for safe quality patient
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care by using link institutional funding to improve the patient's outcome and nursing indicators.”

(Berry & Curry, 2012) They also believe that it is necessary to improve the integration of

services between each care unit, hospital, and community to address the public issue of

overcapacity in the healthcare system. The CFNU believes that by increasing the funding to

homecare organizations and providing better access to primary care that the quality of patient

care would be improved.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Nursing Unions provide members with an opportunity for beneficial gains,

and to have a voice in their concerns with their practices of their profession and work place. Due

to the essential role a nurse has in patient care delivery in the current healthcare system, evidence

shows that nurses are much more inclined to support a union organization when they know a

union allows them to have a greater influence on their practice decisions (Clark & Clark, 2020).
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References

Berry, L., & Curry, P. (2012, September). Nursing Workload and Patient Care: Understanding

the Value of Nurses, the Effects of Excessive Workload, and How Nurse-Patient Ratios

and Dynamic Staffing Models Can Help.

https://nursesunions.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/cfnu_workload_printed_version_pd

f.pdf

Canadian Federation of Nurses Ontario. (2020, March 23). Position statement on COVID-19.

https://nursesunions.ca/position-statement-on-covid-19/

Clark, P. F., & Clark, D. A. (2006). Union strategies for improving patient care: The key to

nurse unionism. Labor Studies Journal, 31(1), 51-70.

https://doi.org/10.1353/lab.2006.0003

Gerardo, P. (2017, June 29). Should I join a nurses union? Pros and cons. Nurse.org.

https://nurse.org/articles/pros-and-cons-nursing-unions/

Jensen, P. M. (2015, March 4). Nursing. The Canadian Encyclopedia.

https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/nursing

McKenzie, G. W. (1983). Measuring economic welfare: New methods. Cambridge University

Press.

MEDIA statement: Health-care unions call for honest, Frank collaboration from Ontario

government regarding COVID-19 protection for health-care workers. (n.d.). ONA.

https://www.ona.org/news-posts/20200311-covid19-joint-statement/
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Ontario Nurses Association. (2019, May 1). ONA celebrates historic pay equity win; A 13-year

pursuit for fairness and equity for nursing home registered nurses. ONA.

https://www.ona.org/news-posts/pay-equity-win/

Pettinger, T. (2017, November 7). Economic welfare. Economics Help.

https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/1041/economics/economic-welfare/