I'm a medical director at a hospital where there are whispers of the lab techs potentially unionizing. The hospital is part of a network and we've been told that if the techs here do unionize, the entire laboratory senior leadership team including myself and the laboratory managers would be replaced.

I'm told that admin at the parent hospital has started exploring selling our lab to Quest or LabCorp which would mean most of our AP work would get sent out. The parent hospital doesn't want the unionization effort to metastasize.

How do you handle this? What can I do to dissuade the lab techs from unionizing? The administrative director has signed to have 6-7 offshore resources brought to the US in a 90 days to help alleviate the efforts. These sponsored techs can't unionize I'm told.

I have $400,000 in student loans I need to finish paying off. And while I'm sure the lab techs being paid as much as they could be (the pay scale is set by the parent hospital) my reimbursement isn't exactly going up.

I don't want to lose this position. What's the best way to convey to the lab techs that if they unionize the lab will be sold? Med schoola and residency didn't really prepare me for labor relations and the two lab managers here do not have formal business training. The administrative director at the parent hospital is salivating at the chance to get more of our testing done at their hospital as well.