Union vulnerability score

[MountainLaurel]

Background: Our hospital system (5 hospitals, 40 clinics, 10K+ employees) makes us take an annual online "engagement survey" to look at issues surrounding employee satisfaction. This year the organization got a new survey provider whose application apparently provides more functionality than the previous one. Results are broken down by department, and it's the practice to discuss the results in a departmental meeting.

So, today our group (a nonclinical area of about 15 people) went over our results, with the vendor's website projected on a screen to show the results. In the lefthand column were links for different ways of displaying and interpreting the base data: pie charts, graphs, text results, etc. During the discussion, I noticed that one of the options was "Union Vulnerability Score." (None of the employees in the system are with a union, as far as I know.) I was kind of blown away at the phrase and just what it said about the institution's thoughts on union protection, that it was something to be guarded against. Of course, I shouldn't have been surprised. As fate would have it, our boss clicked through to that result, which ranked "union vulnerability" on a scale from Very vulnerable to Not vulnerable at all, or some such. (We weren't particularly "vulnerable.") I thought this group might be interested in the tale, as well as any others. I think it demonstrates exactly how companies see their employees.

[patrice]

1. American "health" "care" is afraid of Unions, because the system knows,

what with the staffing shortages perpetuating job security and supporting wages & benefits, what organized professionals would want most would be work environments that support STANDARDS FOR QUALITY OF CARE. The economic systems fear more exacting commitments to quality of life/care more than anything else, because, from where I and many others sit, there's lots of fat in the systems that has nothing to do with whether those in need actually get what they need or not.