Collective bargaining for healthcare professionals is commonplace in the healthcare sector, for professionals such as doctors, dentists, nurses, physiotherapists, radiographers and other professions allied to medicine.link
The Supreme Court of Canada said in 2007: “The right to bargain collectively with an employer enhances the human dignity, liberty and autonomy of workers by giving them the opportunity to influence the establishment of workplace rules and thereby gain some control over a major aspect of their lives, namely their work… collective bargaining permits workers to achieve a form of workplace democracy and to ensure the rule of law in the workplace. Workers gain a voice to influence the establishment of rules that control a major aspect of their lives.link
P.C. Weiler, author of various texts on workers’ rights and labour law, said in ‘Reconcilable Differences’ in 1980: “Collective bargaining is not simply an instrument for pursuing external ends, whether these be mundane monetary gains or the erection of a private rule of law to protect the dignity of the worker in the face of managerial authority. Rather, collective bargaining is intrinsically valuable as an experience in self-government. It is the mode in which employees participate in setting the terms and conditions of employment, rather than simply accepting what their employer chooses to give them.”
Research has found that union members covered by collective agreements do, on average, in countries outside the US, get a wage markup over their non-unionized (or uncovered) counterparts of 5 to 10 percent.link