Abstract
<jats:p>The pandemic negatively impacted healthcare workers’ health and well-being. Consequently, some healthcare unions have adopted militancy to improve healthcare workers’ pay. Correspondingly, work and employment relations scholars have turned to understanding the conditions of militancy in healthcare (Krachler et al., 2021), particularly focusing on workforce representatives’ framing activities to mobilize nurses (Cake, 2023; Naughton, 2022). While there has been recent attention on the conditions of successful union framing, scholars have rarely explored how institutions can inhibit framing effectiveness (Gahan & Pekarek, 2013). Building on this scholarship and an extensive media analysis of the post-pandemic, healthcare workers’ strike wave in England representing around one million National Health Service (NHS) employees, this chapter explores the influence of two institutional conditions on healthcare mobilization: first, how workforce representatives can overcome potential barriers related to healthcare workers’ professional motivations and values; second, how the macro-institutional context of English healthcare – with its publicly driven and regulated healthcare and employment relations systems – influences union framing effectiveness. Findings confirm previous scholarly emphasis on frame extension to overcome professional barriers, showing these insights apply beyond nurses, generally to healthcare workers. Findings further highlight both the facilitative and inhibitive character of institutional factors (Cornfield & Fletcher, 1998). Overall, the chapter argues that framing efficacy depends on the interaction between worker representatives’ agency to choose frames and the limiting influence of institutions.</jats:p>