Residents, fellows and interns at Northwestern Medicine hospitals and clinics voted Monday to unionize, citing a lack of transparency regarding pay raises and health care benefits.
According to a news release from the Service Employees International Union’s Committee of Interns and Residents, NU doctors regularly work over 80 hours a week and say they are “overworked” and “underpaid.”
The group announced its intention to unionize in December, giving the University the chance to voluntarily recognize the union before the election took place.
Staffers at NU’s McGaw Medical Center will be represented by the Committee, which represents 30,000 other medical fellows across the country.
“Having a seat at the table means we can advocate for fair pay and improvements to our working conditions, allowing us to dedicate ourselves fully to our training and to providing the highest quality of care to our patients,” Dr. James Hammock, a first-year psychiatry resident at NU Medicine, said in the news release.
Eighty-four percent of voters were in favor of the union. The union is the largest of medical staff in the Midwest with 1,300 physicians.
Peter Cummings, a third-year Ph.D. candidate in psychiatry and behavioral sciences and a member of the Northwestern University Graduate Workers’ bargaining committee, said he thinks this movement will continue. He predicts NU Medicine’s adjunct faculty, post-doctoral candidates and nurses will also unionize soon.
“We’re very much interested in building solidarity with workers across campuses and health systems who are trying to do this,” Cummings said. “I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before we really coalesce around some of these issues.”
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