Arbeitsverdichtung im Krankenhaussektor: Erfolgreiche gewerkschaftliche Strategien zur Personalbemessung

Trade unions in the German and U.S hospital sectors are facing increasing marketisation leading to work intensification for employees. Mandatory staffing levels can moderate this trend. Drawing on a combination of organising and social movement unionism, the United Services Union ver.di at the Charité Berlin, as well as the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) in several New York City hospitals, successfully concluded a collective agreement regulating staffing levels and implementing measures to limit work overload for nurses. Against the background of traditional industrial relations theories, those parallels are surprising. Instead of macro institutional theories, the authors use actor-centered approaches that focus on the local organisational level, power-resources and opportunity structures to explain the similar strategy choices. The paper shows how ver.di at the Charité Berlin and NYSNA successfully took steps independently of each other to limit the effect of marketisation on work intensification, by building up their organisational power, drawing on resources from local, political, media and other civil society actors, and framing their conflict in socio-political terms.