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Twin Cities Nurses Approve One Day Strike
The union has aggressively used social media implementing Facebook, Twitter and a separate blog on the Word Press Minnesota Nurses blog platform in addition to their website. The Twin Cities hospitals formed a coalition of six hospital systems representing about 22 hospitals that has taken a more traditional approach toward its communications.
In this podcast we talk with John Nemo, director of public relations for the Minnesota Nurses Association about their use of social media. We focused solely on the strategy and tactics used during this labor negotiation which is still an ongoing story. This interview was conducted on Friday, May 21 just after the Twin Cities Minnesota nurses voted to approve a one day strike.
The criteria of many healthcare related labor negotiations have common themes including:
- a public timeline,
- naturally occurring news cycles based on deadlines,
- potentially wide impact across the consumer population,
- emotional connection to both individuals and communities, and,
- the potential angle of generating public sentiment that could impact either the negotiations and/or other entities such as legislators.
I highlight this to give context to the environments where I believe social media can be implemented.
I also have a request to interview the hospital coalition and thought it best to do that as a separate interview and podcast. For the purpose of putting the hospitals’ public presence into perspective I have talked with individuals familiar with the issue. The lack of social media participation on their part perhaps indicates the coalition’s desire not feed the emotional embers which are inherent in most contract negotiations. In the case of management vs. labor the chances of generating as many individuals “liking” a management page is not a fair comparison and therefore may give a perception that has little basis in fact. Are coworkers of nurses going to publicly “Like” management’s position Facebook page even if they agree with that position? Unlikely.
There are however other examples of hospitals taking the contract discussion public to be transparent about the running of a hospital. An example is Paul Levy of CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center who spoke out openly when that hospital was in negotiations with the Service Employees International Union SEIU
I hope to explore the Twin Cities hospitals position further. Follow me on Twitter @albertmaruggi for updates on this story. What are your thoughts about taking health care related labor negotiations public?
