Unionization can hit the health care industry faster than you think, thanks to President Obama’s latest hiring decision. He recently appointed two pro-union lawyers - Craig Becker and Mark Pearce - to the five-person National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
This will affect every industry but it will particularly affect the health care and life sciences industries. Unlike most other industries, it’s not as easy to outsource or move jobs offshore. These two industries are hands-on, due to their patient-service provider nature and will continue to stay domestic.
Labor unions have already started to focus on companies within these industries. They are pushing for greater legislation and regulations to help organize jobs within the health care and life science industries. With the Board count now skewed towards a pro-union stance, the NLRB will push the controversial Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), dramatically limiting employers’ ability to oppose union organization campaigns.
With such a pro-union board, there are several things that are likely to happen:
• Secret-ballot representation elections could be eliminated. A pro-union board would have a stronger tendency to determine that an employer has violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and elect to bypass elections that would decide whether to unionize. A Gissel bargaining order would be implemented in its place, forcing an employer to recognize and bargain with unions.
• Any election held to bring in a union could be sped up. This leaves employers minimal time to counter a union’s propaganda.
• Many of the current decisions protecting employers from unions can be overturned. The law would change to give unions the advantage, while putting employers in a difficult spot.
Will additional unionization within the health care industry lead to increase costs? The general consensus is that it will. If that’s the case, how will employers and carriers react? How will this impact the new MLR constraints? Only time will tell.
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