Penn Medicine residents voted to unionize, creating the biggest new union in Philadelphia in more than 50 years

Residents and fellows in the University of Pennsylvania Health System have voted to unionize, becoming the first group of training doctors in Pennsylvania to do so.

In an election administered by the National Labor Relations Board, just over 1,000 people voted, and 89% approved unionization for house staff — the industry term for these physicians in training. About 1,400 total workers would be represented by the union, Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR).

“The road to this day was not easy, but it was worth it,” said Kendall Major, a second-year internal medicine resident. “As the primary caregivers for many of our most vulnerable community members, we need a say in the decisions that impact our ability to care for patients.”

» READ MORE: Penn residents’ fight for a union could set a precedent for the future of labor organizing in medicine

The vote took place over three days last week. A spokesperson for Penn Medicine acknowledged the election results and noted that the vote is not yet certified by the NLRB.

“We are proud of Penn Medicine’s long history as home to many top residency and fellowship programs, and we have appreciated the ongoing opportunity to hear directly from residents about their concerns during this unionization campaign,” the Penn Medicine spokesperson said in a statement. “We respect our trainees’ collective decision and remain committed to continuing our work to improve their training experience and ensure that they are fully supported during these transformative years of their medical careers.”

Madison Sharp, a third-year OB/GYN resident, said she and her colleagues received text messages and e-mails telling them about the downsides of unionizing. During the election, signs posted around campus told the physicians to “Give us a chance” and “Vote No.”

The Penn Medicine doctors are the largest group to successfully unionize in Philadelphia in 53 years, according to CIR.

The residents went public with their organizing plans in February, but their efforts began long before that. One of the catalysts, residents said, were the extra shifts they were expected to cover during COVID-19 peaks.

Residents and fellows earn a set salary annually, without extra pay for taking on more hours. Working well over 40 hours per week, sometimes double that, is not uncommon, physicians said. While they can expect their income to increase after they finish training, their student loan payments usually cannot be delayed until that time, creating financial stress for many, they said.

In addition to base pay, residents and fellows organizing the union expressed concern about their health-care benefits, parental leave, and child-care support.

“At the end of the day, the prestige of working at a nationally ranked hospital like Penn isn’t enough to ensure our patients receive top quality care, to meet our basic needs, or to address the deeper inequities of our health-care system,” said Sharp.

After the vote is certified, the next step for the residents will be bargaining a first contract, which can be a long process. It takes 465 days on average to bargain a first contract, according to an analysis by Bloomberg.

Because residency and fellowship have set end dates, many of the residents who took a leading role in organizing the union are unlikely to benefit from the terms in that first contract.

Chantal Tapé, a family-medicine resident in her final year, noted that the campaign has involved doctors from every department and in all years of training.

“I hope we can inspire house staff and other health-care workers across the country to organize,” Tapé said. “I believe that union can shift the dynamic of our health-care system away from profits for wealthy institutions and toward a better quality of life for workers and better care for patients.”

The physicians are one of several groups of workers currently organizing at University of Pennsylvania institutions. The others include student workers in the university’s residence halls, as well as graduate and undergraduate researchers and teaching assistants, who number more than 4,000.

Resident physicians have been unionizing across the country, and CIR has seen an uptick in doctors joining their union over the past year. CIR, a local of the Service Employees International Union, represents more than 25,000 house staff across the United States.