Health-care unions may make push in Nashville

Big Nashville-based hospital chains should brace for stepped-up efforts to recruit their nurses if a series of mergers and agreements among some of the nation's largest healthcare workers' unions achieves organizers' goals. Nurse organizers expect that a larger organization with 150,000 members and the arrangement with the Service Employees International Union will provide a boost to organizing efforts at chains such as HCA. Recruiting nurses has been difficult in Southern states, including Tennessee, where laws don't allow for mandatory union membership at work. ...

..."We'll have a stronger voice and a strong push to place patients over profits," said Kathy McGregor, a nurse organizer for the National Nurses Organizing Committee overseeing efforts here. The idea is to lay a foundation for the future and increase advocacy on behalf of patients' care, she said.

Hospital administrators, however, would prefer that unions stay away.
"Direct communication between supervisors and employees is the best tool for creating a positive work environment," said Mike Cassity, vice president of human resources with HCA's TriStar Health System hospital group....

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