Background The Health Care And Retirement Corporation Hcr Owns And Operates Over 100 Nursing Homes In 27 States Corpo 1 (76.47 KiB) Viewed 27 times
Background The Health Care And Retirement Corporation Hcr Owns And Operates Over 100 Nursing Homes In 27 States Corpo 2 (52.61 KiB) Viewed 27 times
BACKGROUND The Health Care and Retirement Corporation (HCR) owns and operates over 100 nursing homes in 27 states. Corpo rate headquarters are in Toledo, Ohio. One of the nursing homes is located in rural Ohio and is called Heartland. Heartland is a 100-bed facility with about 65 people em- ployed in the nursing department (10 staff nurses (8 - censed practical nurses, 2 registered nurses] and 55 nurse aides). No employees at Heartland are represented by a union The nurse aides have the most contact with the resi- dents of Heartland-bathing, dressing, feeding, emptying bed pans, and so on. The nurses are responsible for mak ing sure that the needs of the residents are fulfilled- checking on the health status of the residents, administering medicine, and communicating with physicians Nurses also perform the duties of nurse aides when an insufficient number of nurse aides show up for work. While night shift nurses have little to do with assigning aides duties, the day shift nurses are responsible for tell- ing the aides what residents they are responsible for. The nature of the aides' work makes them fairly interchange- able. Also, assignments are often done by following old patterns or letting the aides decide coverage among them- selves. Nurses are responsible for trying to find replace- ment aides when an aide does not show up for work, but they have no authority to order an aide to come in. Nurses have no authority to authorize overtime. Disciplining and performance appraisals of the aides are conducted by the director of nursing, not a staff nurse (although nurses can make comments about an alde's performance in an "em- ployee counseling form) At night and on weekends, the staff nurses are the most senior personnel at the facility The director of nursing for an assistant) is on call and is normally contacted when nonroutine matters arise. Barbara Young was hired in July to be the new adminis. trator at Heartland. She was quite inexperienced, however and was overworked. In December, Ms. Young switched the Heartland's pharmacy from a local pharmacy (whose owner had close ties with the community) to a chain phar macy located 40 miles away. This drastically increased the paperwork duties of the nurses (although it is perhaps the o DI
Laign with 5500 Mein Mode Q mg 341 Qielle Quang 10. Hur Q Tige Chapter Four or low at the tree nurses were ing to change their mode of operation and attitude to improve the facility. Thus Custer decided they should leave when they refused to resign they were fired During February, the three numesteceived a variety of disciplinary notices. The chces surrounding me disciplinary notices for using an in service temat training session were to eat of the situations for which they were disciplined: Only six unes attended, but the three were the only absent nurses to receive warnings. Ad- ditionally Heartland's policy is to give two weeks notice before any mandatory in-service in this instance only a few days notice was given. As a second examplestatud found many minor mistakes by all the nurses in the unit but only the three were disciplined In March, HR Director Custer met with Hearind nues to announce that The pay for sides would be increased for more des + Young would not be fired The pharmacy situation would not be changed back Custer perceived the demeanor and one of the meeting to be resistance to change and emphasic refusal to get on board and make Heart and a good facility. Custer believed the three nurses were responsible for this attitude among the nurses and concluded that they should be fred. The demeanor of the meeting. Custer admitted. was convited to him by the three nurses Crossing her arms and roting their eyes as Ouster talked. Custer therefore concluded QUESTIONS 1. Are the uses covered by the NLRA? Remember that the NLRA excludes supervisors from protection under the act using the following definition 2111) Teem Supervisor means any individuale ng authority in the interest of the employer to hire transfer suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge assign, reward, or spline other employees, or re- sponsibly to direct them or to adjust their grievances. or effectively to recommend such action, it in connec tion with the foregoing the exercise of such authority is not of a merely routine or cliencat nature, but requires the use of independent judgment 2. Creat of possible reason that the three nurses were fired. Determine whether each reason is pro tected by Section 3. If you were a member of the NLRB, would you rule that HICR violated Section Bat) of the NLR by discharg ing the three nurses asuming that they are covered by the NLRA Wy or why not? 6
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