Why Primary-Care Union Activity Demands a Proactive Response
Nursing unions have had their claws in the healthcare industry for quite some time, yet physician organizing didn’t fully take off until a 2022 NLRB ruling opened the floodgates. Since then, SEIU has been off to the races in targeting resident physicians, and by May 2024, the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR-SEIU) offshoot claimed to represent 32,000 workers. A year later, CIR-SEIU has organized over a dozen more healthcare systems.
We also previously warned you of another offshoot, Doctors Council-SEIU, which has been targeting primary care physicians (PCPs) and their unique concerns. Recent activity reveals that Doctors Council is going in hard, and although current “wins” might not sound voluminous, do rest assured that unions remain motivated by doctors’ lucrative salaries:
- 237 PCPs in the Boston area voted to unionize with the Doctors Council this month. A related dispute involving whether short-term care doctors can organize is on hold at the quorum-less NLRB.
- 229 PCPs in Madison, WI, are currently embroiled in a protracted organizing campaign, and the NLRB’s lack of quorum has struck again on charges from both the union and company.
- 600 PCPs at a Minnesota healthcare system are frustrated over contract negotiations after unionizing with the Doctors Council in 2023. A full-on strike has not been called, but some doctors are picketing outside four facilities between appointments. This is also technically the first time that doctors have picketed within the state.
PCP-specific concerns: As with many other medical professions, the recent wave of unionizing can be attributed mainly to heavy caseloads following a post-COVID workforce exodus. However, PCPs also find themselves in a practice area that isn’t as profitable as specialties, and conglomerates frequently absorb these practices’ costs as part of their overall umbrella. Further, this corporatization has proven to be a double-edged sword in the workplace. On one side of that argument, doctors are pushing back against what they view as faceless “suits” that make financial calls for efficiency. On the other side, companies must remain sustainable, a reality that unions love to ignore.
Will we start seeing PCP strikes? By now, nursing strikes are so commonplace that it’s fair to assume that they contribute to doctors’ stress by increasing their workloads. As for whether they, too, will start striking, the American College of Physicians Ethics Manual does pointedly state, “Physicians should not engage in strikes, work stoppages, slowdowns, boycotts [that could] limit or deny services to patients that would otherwise be available.” Yet this directive didn’t stop CIR-SEIU from putting 150 physicians on strike in 2023 for three days in Queens, NY.
Takeaways: (1) Doctors might always feel overworked, burned out, and frustrated with no magic bullet to alleviate such situations; (2) Hospitals are struggling against the loss of federal funding and budget shortfalls, and PCP practices are no exception to financial scrutiny; (3) Strikes are detrimental to patient care and run against medical ethics.
Nobody disputes that the healthcare industry has become more stressful for workers since the pandemic. Yet, it remains to be seen to what degree doctors’ frustrations will lead them to seek third-party representation. It seems unlikely that we’ll see significant strikes from PCPs, but one can never say never, and it’s always best to keep an eye out for union infiltration.
