Healthcare employers are accustomed to navigating an aggressive union organizing environment, but a new challenge has arrived at the bargaining table with a familiar template.
Here’s how that goes: First, a union identifies a hot-button workplace issue. If they find success at a few bargaining tables, that demand becomes standard. Then it’s lather, rinse, and repeat for easy contract “wins” for the union, which will also use the issue to organize. We’ve seen this before in healthcare with staffing ratios, an issue that has emerged in nearly every hospital system’s contract negotiations in recent memory.
Now, unions are zeroing in on AI as their trending healthcare issue. This is happening while physicians are embracing this technology, which is increasing their workplace satisfaction. When healthcare pros are happy at work—as these doctors are, since they’re spending less time on notetaking and more time with patients–they’re less likely to seek unionization. And that’s even more reason for Big Labor to try and flip the script and position AI as a threat to workers.
AI Is The New Staffing Ratios
The staffing ratio origin story involved classic union tactics of disguising the issue as a patient care argument. The way that unions are seizing upon AI is no different. National Nurses United has argued that these tools devalue workers’ expertise and reduce nursing to “tasking.” That type of argument resonates with nurses, and unions use that feeling to their advantage.
Another important consideration: healthcare employers that deploy AI tools affecting workload, scheduling, or job classification should know that any technology that materially affects terms and conditions of employment could trigger a duty to bargain under the NLRA.
Employers cannot afford to look past this coordinated effort, and if they discount the issue, they’ll be looking at unions knocking at their door with ease. The Penn State Labor School’s AI Learning Collaborative for Healthcare Unions held a May 15 conference, during which union leaders received training on how to pursue AI as an organizing topic.
Big Labor Is Already Prepared
Union-friendly outcomes have been emerging. Although the recent NYSNA nursing strike came up incredibly short of what unions promised for wage boosts, the union’s contract with NewYork-Presbyterian hospital system included AI safeguarding language. Last summer, NYSNA also secured first-of-its-kind language requiring AI review before implementation at Northwell South Shore University Hospital. Look for this approach to be replicated by other nursing unions across the U.S.
They already have a ready-made resource. The Penn State collaborative developed a model contract language library from early AI union successes in healthcare. The language includes union approval requirements before AI tools go live and claimed job security protections in the face of this technology. Unions have already read these examples and tips, and likewise, employers should review this library the way a negotiator reads the other side’s prep materials.
Unions have done their homework on this issue. Likewise, organized employers should review that library before their next contract expires. Unorganized employers should start now.
