Here are 11 updates on unionization efforts at hospitals, health systems and medical groups in August, as reported by Becker’s:
1. Nurses at UP Health System-Marquette, who are represented by the Michigan Nurses Association, reached a tentative labor contract on Aug. 24. The nurses’ tentative agreement follows an Aug. 18 “practice strike” by union members.
2. Nurses at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital in Pittsburgh voted to unionize, in what the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Pennsylvania called the largest nurse organizing effort in Pennsylvania in at least a decade.
3. HHS plans to decertify union representation in several agencies, which would affect thousands of agency employees, according to the American Federation of Government Employees.
Five local groups with the American Federation of Government Employees and other unions represent these federal employees. HHS said the removal of their collective bargaining rights is “removing unnecessary obstacles to mission-critical work.”
4. Nurses working at UnityPoint Health hospitals in Des Moines, Iowa, moved forward with their effort to form a union with Teamsters Local 90 after the system declined to voluntarily recognize the proposed union.
5. Members of SEIU 1199NE at Care New England’s Butler Hospital in Providence, R.I., ratified a new four-year labor contract, ending Rhode Island’s longest hospital strike, both parties confirmed in statements shared with Becker’s. The news came after the hospital and union reached a tentative agreement earlier in August.
6. Members of the California Nurses Association held a one-day strike Aug. 12 at Prime Healthcare’s West Anaheim (Calif.) Medical Center. The strike, which involved more than 360 nurses at the hospital, comes amid contract negotiations.
7. Residents and fellow physicians at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore voted to ratify their first labor contract with the hospital.
8. Members of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals at Tower Health’s Pottstown Hospital ratified a new three-year labor contract, according to union and hospital statements shared with Becker’s Aug. 7.
9. Members of the New York State Nurses Association approved a new four-year labor contract with Albany (N.Y.) Medical Center.
10. Registered nurses at Christ Hospital in Jersey City, N.J., and employees at Bayonne (N.J.) Medical Center reached separate three-year collective bargaining agreements. Both hospitals are part of Secaucus, N.J.-based Hudson Regional Health, a four-hospital system formed in May as the final step in CarePoint Health’s bankruptcy exit.
11. SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West filed to place a statewide initiative on the November 2026 ballot that would cap hospital executive pay. Under the Aug. 1 filing, total annual compensation for executives, administrators and managers at nonprofit and for-profit hospitals and medical groups would be capped at $450,000 — the same as the U.S. president’s salary.
