Here are seven updates on unionization efforts at hospitals, health systems and medical groups in September, as reported by Becker’s:
1. Nurses at Northwell Health’s Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N.Y., have been exploring whether to join the New York State Nurses Association. On Sept. 24, nurses filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board for a union election. The NLRB website states that workers may petition for an election after collecting signatures from at least 30% of employees in a potential bargaining unit. If the agency verifies sufficient interest, it will schedule an election.
2. Members of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals planned a five-day strike that was set to begin Oct. 6 at Temple University Hospital Main Campus and Temple Women and Families Hospital in Philadelphia, with bone marrow transplant nurses and techs at Jeanes Hospital in Philadelphia also striking. The union represents 2,600 nurses, techs and professionals across two local chapters: the Temple University Hospital Nurses Association and the Temple University Hospital Allied Health Professionals.
3. Resident physicians and fellows at one Chicago-based organization ratified their first labor contract as members of the same union at another continue to negotiate with their health system.
Physicians at McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University — the nonprofit that sponsors Northwestern’s residency and fellowship programs — ratified the deal Sept. 15-19, more than a year after physicians unionized in January 2024. They reached a tentative agreement with hospital administrators Sept. 5 after they held a unity break action outside Northwestern Memorial Hospital in August.
4. The union representing nurses at San Diego-based Sharp HealthCare delivered a petition to health system leaders Sept. 17, highlighting their concerns amid ongoing contract negotiations. A Sharp HealthCare spokesperson told Becker’s that representatives received the petition from the Sharp Professional Nurses Network — an affiliate of United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals — “in the same mutually respectful manner as the parties’ negotiations have been conducted.”
5. Registered nurses at HCA Florida Fort Walton-Destin Hospital in Fort Walton Beach voted in favor of unionizing. In a two-day vote, from Sept. 10-11, more than 65% of nurses voted to join the National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United.
6. Hundreds of healthcare workers across multiple Kaiser Permanente facilities in Northern California began a one-day strike Sept. 8. The strike involved more than 600 nurse midwives and nurse anesthetists across more than 20 hospitals. They are negotiating over issues including “unsafe staffing, burnout, and the risk to patient care,” according to a Sept. 8 news release from United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals.
7. A strike by nurses at Henry Ford Genesys Hospital in Grand Blanc, Mich., has entered its third day Sept. 4. The roughly 700 registered nurses at the hospital are represented by Teamsters Local 332. The union and hospital began negotiations for a new labor contract in the spring.
