Abstract
There is little doubt that nurses are represented by unions and quasi-professional organizations with quite different policies and strategies in the defence of their members’ interests. This diversity is not a new phenomenon with the RCN (Royal College of Nursing) and with similar, but much smaller, quasi-professional organizations attempting to pursue a fairly orthodox professionalization strategy. In contrast, COHSE (the Confederation of Health Service Employees) organizes psychiatric nurses in particular in a more conventional trade union fashion (Carpenter 1988; Lewis 1976). The differences in strategic approaches were evident during the health disputes of the 1970s (Lewis 1976: 645–7), and have recently been brought to the fore again in disputes with management and government.
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© 1992 Keith Soothill, Christine Henry and Kevin Kendrick
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Bagguley, P. (1992). Angels in red? patterns of union membership amongst UK professional nurses. In: Soothill, K., Henry, C., Kendrick, K. (eds) Themes and Perspectives in Nursing. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-4435-1_18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-4435-1_18
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