BRONX, NY – The resident physicians at St. Barnabas Hospital held a secret ballot election on Thursday, June 18 on whether to join a union. However, their democratic votes were not counted. While it could be months until the votes are counted, residents said those who came out to vote were overwhelmingly in support of joining the Committee of Interns and Residents.
“Initially when we got involved in CIR, we thought we would have a long way to go, and it has been a long fight,” said St. Barnabas resident Dr. Bharat Subba Thursday evening after the election. “Today we voted. It’s such a good feeling to finally have an election, and I’m confident we’ll have a CIR chapter.”
Region 2 of the National Labor Relations Board ruled on May 22 that the physicians have the right to form a union and should proceed with an election. The hospital has appealed that decision. Pending review by the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C., all the ballots were impounded.
“This demonstrates how uneven the playing field is, and why we need the Employee Free Choice Act,” said Dr. Nailah Thompson, Executive Vice President of CIR. “Ninety percent of these doctors signed a petition to have a union, then had to wait five months to finally have an election, and now their votes may not be counted for several more months. This is not the way the system should work.”
Residents are confident that they won the vote to have a union. Nearly 90 percent of the 280 resident physicians on staff signed a petition in January asking the hospital to recognize the Committee of Interns and Residents/SEIU Healthcare as their exclusive bargaining agent. The hospital challenged the petition, arguing that the residents are students and therefore not employees.
The fact is that resident physicians work up to 80 hours a week as front-line healthcare providers. They have been recognized as employees under the National Labor Relations Act since 1999, when the NLRB ruled that residents are employees, regardless of the educational aspects of residency.
Many stakeholders in the community have asked the hospital to stop fighting the union and to put hospital funds instead into patient care, including Bronx Council members Annabel Palma and G. Oliver Koppell, Assemblymen Michael Benjamin, Jose Rivera, Nelson Castro, Jose Peralta, Tom Duane and Richard Gottfried, and State Sen. George Onorato. The elected officials urged the hospital to respect the NLRB decision and honor the results of the union election.