Reference no: EM132872057

Woodville healthcare

Bargaining Hypothetical Woodville HeathCare Woodville HealthCare is a for-profit health care provider formed through the merger of several networks of physicians. It operates 50 managed care clinics and employs 400 doctors in the West. The merger has resulted in a major restructuring of operations. Several clinics have been closed, and a number of new operating guidelines have been implemented.

Doctors are not now required to see more patients; specialty medical procedures and nongeneric prescriptions must be approved by the medical authorization department, and expensive procedures can negatively affect a doctor's salary. Some doctors contacted a national doctors' union that is affiliated with one of the largest U.S. unions and an organizing drive was launched.

After a petition was filed with the NLRB, Woodville filed objections and argued that the doctors were supervisors and therefore excluded from the NLRA. The NLRB eventually ruled that 100 of the doctors had supervisory responsibilities, but that 300 were nonmanagerial doctors. Woodville then spent $200,000 (plus staff time) on an anti-union campaign leading up to last week's election.

The election results were 142 votings in favor of the union, 128 against. The union won. This was a slim seven-vote margin and even though Woodville doesn't want a union there, their attorney predicted that there was only a 20 percent change that filing objections and an appeal with the NLRB would succeed. They decided to recognize the union and bargain.

You are the union representative leading bargaining for the new union.

1. How would you prepare for negotiations?

2. What type of information would be important for you?

3. What type of bargaining priorities and strategies would you develop?

All three answers questions fully and completely should be in essay format and should be explained