Medical residents join unionization trend with five new chapters in 2022
Abigail Adcox
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More medical residents are unionizing at hospitals across the country, calling for improved working conditions and higher pay.
The Committee of Interns and Residents, part of the Service Employees International Union that represents over 22,000 resident physicians and fellows in residency and fellowship programs, said five chapters were added at teaching hospitals in 2022, up from the two that were formed in 2021. An additional two chapters in New York City and San Francisco that also have broad support are pending National Labor Relations Board elections.
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A longstanding practice of requiring physicians-in-training to work long hours with lower wages, exacerbated by working strains during the COVID-19 pandemic, has pushed more residents to form unions at their places of work. Prior to the pandemic, the Committee of Interns and Residents averaged one new chapter a year, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Recent union campaigns have been centered on securing contracts with livable wages to protect residents from high inflation rates. While the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education requires that teaching hospitals cap resident work weeks at 80 hours with no single shift going past 24 hours, it does not outline wages. In 2021, first-year residents earned an average of roughly $60,000 a year, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
In San Francisco, residents and fellows at California Pacific Medical Center hospitals have announced plans to unionize, arguing that the efforts would give them more bargaining power with their employer to leverage better pay and benefits and more flexible working conditions while improving patient care.
Dani Golomb, a second-year resident for psychiatry, told the San Francisco Standard that the efforts were meant to give them more representation and centered on “improving conditions for everybody.”
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Dr. Janis Orlowski, chief healthcare officer for the Association of American Medical Colleges, told the association last year that while residents tend to work long hours, they are also “receiving very valuable training that is expensive for institutions to provide.”