Resident physicians and fellows in the Philadelphia area may unionize, a growing trend fueled by an increase in hospital-employed physicians, industry observers said.
More than 3,000 residents and fellows training at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Temple University Hospital and Jefferson Health said last week they will vote on whether to unionize. The Philadelphia physicians-in-training are seeking representation by the Committee of Interns and Residents/Service Employees International Union and would follow other labor organization efforts in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Illinois, Minnesota and California.
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The Philadelphia residents and fellows are considering unionization after a successful campaign by Penn Medicine resident physicians, who in October voted to accept their first union contract.
“We’re the doctors who care for the majority of patients at Philly’s safety net hospitals, but we’re burned out, overworked and underpaid,” a spokesperson for the Committee of Interns and Residents/Service Employees International Union said in a news release. “Our patients deserve better—and so do we. We are ready to follow in the footsteps of Penn residents and the thousands of residents nationwide who have transformed their workplaces and patient care by organizing.”
A spokesperson for Jefferson said in a statement its residency program provides competitive wages and benefits, as well as exceptional medical training.
“While we respect our residents’ right to explore unionization, we believe that a direct working relationship between our health system's team members and our leaders results in the most empowered and productive teams,” the spokesperson said.
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Temple University Hospital did not respond to requests for comment.
There has also been an increase in unionization among residents practicing in the Chicago area, as well as in other markets throughout the country, said Dr. Adam Mikolajczyk, associate professor of clinical medicine at University of Illinois Chicago. As a result, more attending physicians may unionize as residents age into faculty positions, he said.
The Committee of Interns and Residents/Service Employees International Union represents about 33,000 interns, residents and fellows in nearly a dozen states and Washington, D.C., according to the group's website.
That number has grown in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic, along with a growing number of hospital-employed physicians, triggered a coordinated push from healthcare workers seeking to bolster workplace safety, boost compensation and improve patient care, researchers and industry observers said. Labor organization among healthcare employees has led to increased wages and benefits and safer working conditions, experts said.
Nearly a third of physicians worked in hospital-owned practices in 2022, compared with 23.4% in 2012, according to the most recent data from the American Medical Association.
“The pandemic offered a visceral realization of the workplace hazards healthcare workers face and spurred a desire to have union representation that can fight for better working conditions,” said Adam Dean, an associate professor of political science at George Washington University who has studied unionization in healthcare. “There is a lot of evidence that unions help improve quality of work and the safety of the workplace.”
Dr. Ahmed Ahmed, a resident in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said clinician labor organization efforts at Massachusetts health systems including Mass General Brigham, Cambridge Health Alliance and Salem Hospital shows a growing trend in unionization beyond residents.
“Both residents and attendings feel they lack voice in hospitals that are increasingly growing more corporate, and they worry that it is negatively impacting both the patients and the providers,” he said.
A spokesperson for the American Medical Association said the association supports the right of physicians to engage in collective bargaining, but did not comment on the uptick in labor organization.
