ChristianaCare physicians will vote on whether to unionize. Here is how each side is making its case.
The campaign to persuade physicians includes emails, Instagram posts, videos, town halls, and websites.
Physicians at ChristianaCare are heading into a weeklong election to determine whether they will form a union, which would be the first of its kind for physicians post-training in the Philadelphia region.
Like any election, each side is campaigning.
The ballot is a single question, asking if the physicians wish to be represented by Doctors Council, an affiliate of Service Employees International Union, for the purposes of collective bargaining.
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Here is how union organizers and health system’s administration are making their respective cases:
ChristianaCare
The health system has been sending staff physicians a series of emails, videos, and meeting invites. A page on the ChristianaCare website aggregates information that the system calls “helpful” for each physician to “be an informed voter.”
ChristianaCare’s message: We hear your frustrations, but don’t let a union come between physicians and management.
As Janice Nevin, ChristianaCare’s president and CEO, said in a video from late May: “My overarching concern is that the unionization effort threatens the relationships that exist across our organization.”
In another video posted on June 10, Nevin shares her takeaways from conversations with physician teams throughout the hospital, saying “very concerning signs” of discord seem “to be a direct result of the current unionization effort.”
Nevin said that two physicians who were supposed to start working for ChristianaCare this summer went elsewhere because of the unionization effort.
The webpage features logistical information about the upcoming election and answers questions such as “what happens in a strike?”
A “myths vs. fact” section opens with this line: “Fact: creating a union doesn’t give you a voice; creating a union transfers your individual voice to the voice of the union.”
ChristianaCare is represented at the National Labor Relations Board by Ogletree Deakins, a national firm that specializes in labor and employment issues.
Doctors’ union organizers
The organizing physicians have hosted a town hall, uploaded content to an Instagram account, and created a website to support their unionization effort.
The Instagram account features testimonial-like videos from ChristianaCare physicians with reasons to unionize.
In one video, ChristianaCare hospitalist Ragu Sanjeev says the health system has become more “corporatized,” which takes the focus away from quality of care.
“The main reason we got into forming a union is to make sure we bring the focus back to patients,” Sanjeev said.
The organizers’ website includes “FAQs” and “Union Myths” sections, similar to ChristianaCare’s webpage. But the information featured is different.
The organizers highlight that it is illegal for an employer to retaliate against union organizers. And while a strike is a collective bargaining tool, physician union strikes are extremely rare and have historically been over severe safety issues.
The “Union Myths” section of the website addresses ChristianaCare’s claim that the union will take away physicians’ voices, calling such rhetoric “union busting.”
“Physician unions are run by physicians,” the website says. “We ARE the union.”
The organizing physicians are represented at the National Labor Relations Board by Doctors Council, an affiliate of SEIU.