ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to discuss the sources of class conflict within the hospital work force in the nature and organization of hospital work. The hospital work force is in many ways distinct from the industrial work force as a whole. The explosive growth of the hospital industry in the last two decades has led to the formation of a hospital work force which is increasingly stable, highly differentiated, and in many other ways similar to the industrial work force. Hospital work is different from industrial work and the hospital worker faces contradictions which have only limited analogies in manufacturing industries or even in other service industries. The wave of hospital unionization has done much to reinforce the psychological industrialization of the lower-rank hospital workers. Registered nurses occupy an intermediate position in the hospital hierarchy—subordinate to the doctors, but in a supervisory role with respect to practical nurses, aides, and several other kinds of semiskilled workers.
