Labor Pains: The Corporate Campaign Against The Healthcare Industry

Labor The Corporate Campaign Against the Healthcare Industry chronicles recent attempts by organized labor to increase union membership in the rapidly growing healthcare industry. A “corporate campaign” is a sophisticated array of strategies and tactics with which economic, political and pshychological warfare is waged against companies from which unions seek concessions. The objective of corporate campaigns is tarnish the reputation of the target company and undermine key relationships with stakeholders such that management chooses to yield to labor’s demands rather than risk further economic harm. Because there is a pool of $6 billion in potential union dues in the health care industry in terms of employees not currently union members, organized labor is pressuring health care employers to impose union membership on health care employees without giving those employees an opportunity to express their opinion on the question in a secret ballot election.