MMHA 5500 Week 9 Labor Relations Bargaining Brief Example

Labor Relations Brief: Extending Urgent Care Hours Under the Collective Agreement

Student Name

Walden University

MMHA 5500: Human Resource Management and Organizational Development and Leadership for Healthcare Administrators

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Labor Relations Brief: Extending Urgent Care Hours Under the Collective Agreement

The Proposal and the Question

Leaders of the composite Lakeside Outpatient Network want both urgent care clinics, North and South, open until 10 p.m. on weekdays and newly open on Sundays. The clinic staff work under a collective agreement. The question is whether management may decide this alone, or whether some or all of it must be bargained with the union first. This brief sorts the proposal into what the agreement appears to reserve to management, what federal labor law treats as a mandatory subject of bargaining and what should be on the table before anything is announced. It is written for the executive team; counsel should confirm its conclusions before action.

What the Agreement Says

As the scenario supplies them, the agreement's management rights article reserves to the network "the right to determine the services to be offered, the locations and hours of operation of its facilities, and the methods and means of providing services." The hours of work article provides that "the regular work schedule for full-time employees shall consist of shifts of eight, ten or twelve hours, Monday through Saturday, posted at least four weeks in advance," and that "Sunday work shall be voluntary and compensated at time and one-half." Read together, the first suggests that management may decide when the clinics open; the second limits how management may staff those hours.

The Law's Central Distinction

Under the National Labor Relations Act, the duty to bargain collectively covers pay, working hours and the other conditions under which people work (29 U.S.C. § 158). These are mandatory subjects of bargaining: the employer may not change them unilaterally without bargaining, unless the contract clearly gives it that right. Other matters, such as the scope and direction of the business, are generally left to management, though an employer that makes such a decision may still have to bargain over its effects on employees. The line between the two is not always sharp, and labor boards and courts decide close cases on their facts.

Sorting the Proposal

Table 1 sorts the elements of the proposal.

Table 1

Elements of the Extended-Hours Proposal, Sorted

What This Means for the Executive Team

The decision to open the clinics later and on Sundays appears to be management's under the agreement. How the network staffs those hours does not. Requiring Sunday work would conflict directly with the hours of work article. New evening shifts, their pay and any change to workload are terms and conditions of employment. The network should therefore notify the union of the proposal and offer to bargain over evening shift assignment, a differential for evening hours, how Sunday shifts will be filled, staffing levels and the schedule posting timeline, before announcing anything to staff or the public. Announcing first and bargaining second would invite an unfair labor practice charge and damage trust with staff the network needs to work the new hours. It would also likely generate grievances under the hours of work article, and arbitrators reviewing such disputes read contract language closely and apply it as written (Koven & Smith, 2006). Imposed evening and Sunday schedules are a retention risk as well; turnover research identifies schedules and the work environment among consistent influences on whether people stay (Hom et al., 2017), and the clinics cannot extend hours with staff who leave.

Next Steps

Counsel should confirm the reading of the management rights article and advise on the bargaining obligation for effects. Labor relations should prepare a proposal for evening and Sunday staffing, including a voluntary Sunday sign-up and differential, and request a meeting with the union. The network should plan for bargaining to take several weeks and set the opening date accordingly.

References

Hom, P. W., Lee, T. W., Shaw, J. D., & Hausknecht, J. P. (2017). One hundred years of employee turnover theory and research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), 530-545. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000103

Koven, A. M., & Smith, S. L. (2006). Just cause: The seven tests (3rd ed., revised by K. May). BNA Books.

Unfair labor practices, 29 U.S.C. § 158 (2023).