Abstract
Collective bargaining in health care facilities is highly controversial. There is little consensus among administrators, boards of trustees, and hospital associations in regard to unionism. Those opposed argue that collective bargaining can have only a stifling effect on the employees, thus endangering the patient. Some fear unionization because of the strength and power they feel the unions will exert. Perhaps the most controversial issue of all is the collective bargaining carried on by state nurses' associations and the powerful force of the American Nurses Association's Economic Security Program. | Many experts in the field of labor relations believe that if more attention had been given to employee affairs in hospitals in the past, present collective bargaining attempts might have been prevented. However, the best of personnel policies could not have been adequate to prevent the collective bargaining attempts of the nursing profession. Nursing associations, as organizations of professionals, are after more than better hours, more pay, better and increased benefits; they have always linked collective bargaining with better paitent(sic) care and the recruitment of nurses. The nursing profession of today is a highly professionalized group demanding voice in the operation of the hospital organization.