Unfair Labor Practice Charge on Covid-19 Related Issues

ULP Response – Allegheny General Hospital
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ULP Response - Allegheny General Hospital
Introduction
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) was enacted with the anticipation of the brewing tensions between the employers and the employees, particularly on matters to do with basic rights and cases of inequality in bargaining powers between the two parties (NLRB, n.d.). According to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the body in charge of enforcing the NLRA and overseeing cases of unfair labor practices, “protection by law of the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively safeguards commerce from injury, impairment, or interruption, and promotes the flow of commerce by removing certain recognized sources of industrial strife and unrest” (NLRB, n.d. para. 4). The NLRA, however, failed to effectively anticipate other unfortunate situations that are likely to disrupt the workplaces and potentially cause retaliation by some employees including pandemics, the reasons for the upsurge in ULP cases relating to workers' safety during the COVID-19 pandemic ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"V3qKDKfs","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(The National Law Review, 2020)","plainCitation":"(The National Law Review, 2020)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":3689,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/IBolxqVE/items/D4DT78AM"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/IBolxqVE/items/D4DT78AM"],"itemData":{"id":3689,"type":"webpage","abstract":"Flintville Plastics Inc. is slowly resuming operations at the Michigan plant where it manufactures plastic components for automobiles. The coronavirus pandemic hit the region particularly ha","container-title":"The National Law Review","language":"en","title":"The NLRA in a Pandemic","URL":"/article/nlra-pandemic","author":[{"literal":"The National Law Review"}],"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2021",4,30]]},"issued":{"date-parts":[["2020"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (The National Law Review, 2020). COVID-19 has had major implications to the NLRA, and the concern on the risks of exposure by the healthcare workers makes the interruptions within health care institutions even dire (Damm & Stuart, 2020). New policies need to be enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to address the safety concerns and the confidentiality issues without compromising the NLRA acts. An important point to note is that COVID-19 related cases might also be cases of occupational safety and may attract the attention of OSHA.
Background of the Case
When COVID-19 struck in the early months of 2020, Allegheny General Hospital of address 322 North Avenue Pittsburgh, PA, had to restructure its operations and policies in anticipation of the deadly virus. Among the drastic measures undertaken by the hospital included formulation of policies dealing with the compensation of high-risk workers, quarantine and medications arrangement in case of exposure, facilitation of protective gears, and information dissemination model regarding the pandemic. Due to the emergencies and difficulties that came along with the pandemic, most of the adjustments were implemented in a haste. The frontline workers were also scheduled to attend patients based on several attributes: the experience, underlying condition, age, and most importantly the willingness of the front liners to care for COVID-19 patients.
Madeline Lewis, a nurse at the Allegheny General Hospital and also a member of the Pennsylvania Association of Nurse Workers, together with 18 other nurses, were unfortunately designated to serve in the COVID-19 unit as per the criteria used in selecting the front liners. The nurses' scheduling period followed a rotational plan to minimize the risks of exposure that could potentially render the facility inefficient in the battle against the pandemic. To minimize the risks the selected nurses were scheduled on long nursing shifts and intermittent breaks for the nurses to undergo tests (Kluger et al., 2020). Most of the facility resources were channeled towards securing more and standard protective gear for the front line workers and despite the overstretch that is witnessed globally due to the break down in supply chain and generally high demands, Allegheny General Hospital was fortunate to secure enough protective equipment at least for the workers tending to patients in COVID-19 unit.
Robert, the manager in charge of the hospital nurses was the man behind the scheduling and the rotation of the nurses working in the COVID-19 unit. Robert throughout his time at the facility has expressed a lot of professionalism, giving the hospital lots of confidence that the scheduling and the workers working in high risk were in good hands. In addition, the labor union representatives were permitted to undertake safety inspections while also observing safety protocols aimed at limiting the spread of COVID-19. Besides, none of the nurses scheduled to work in the COVID-19 expressed their displeasure with the schedule either in writing or verbally, giving the management the impression that the 19 nurses were comfortable with the schedule. Unfortunately, probably due to the evolving nature of the virus, with the experts initially having little information regarding the spread of the virus and inadequate personal responsibility from the nurses stationed at the COVID-19 unit, most of the nurses contracted COVID-19. Initial research indicated that both the surgical masks and the K95 Masks that were mainly available for healthcare workers did not protect up to 100% from the spread of the virus (Ng et al., 2020), asserting the fact that there was little knowledge about the effectiveness of the protective gears.
NLRA Violations and Risks to the Institution
The spread...