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Approximately 230 physicians, psychologists, and physician associates at Cambridge Health Alliance filed for unionization last Thursday with the Massachusetts Department of Labor Relations as State Health And Research Employees.
CHA includes two hospitals — CHA Everett Hospital and CHA Cambridge Hospital — and more than 30 other medical facilities in Cambridge, Somerville, Everett, Revere, and Malden.
Because Cambridge Health Alliance is a public employer, the workers filed for unionization with the Massachusetts Department of Labor Relations rather than the National Labor Relations Board.
According to the DLR, a prospective union must obtain “written majority authorization evidence” — through union cards or petitions — from workers that allow the organization to represent them. If the petition is approved, SHARE CHA will be allowed to unionize without an election.
“We want to have some decision-making power when it comes to decisions that are being made at the clinic,” CHA psychologist Andrew S. Hyatt said.
“We want a chance to really sit down with our leaders,” he added.
“We have met with representatives of the SHARE union several times as it pursues a formal Department of Labor process. Once certified, we will bargain in good faith as we do with our other unions,” CHA spokesperson David Cecere wrote in an emailed statement to The Crimson.
The filing comes as healthcare workers at other local institutions are pushing to unionize. If successful, SHARE CHA would join another union of physicians and fellows at Cambridge Hospital — a member of CHA — who recently won their first contract after six months of negotiations. Recently, almost 300 physicians at Mass General Brigham also filed a petition to unionize with the NLRB.
Rising costs have increased corporatization of medicine, forcing doctors to see more and more patients to turn a greater profit. These trends are being seen “more acutely” at CHA because it is a safety net hospital and has less money, Hyatt said.
“Medicine is turning more and more and more into a business,” CHA primary care physician Jeremy C. Stricsek said.
“All these drives to make as much money as possible regardless of the setting — that really runs counter to providing good patient care,” Stricsek added.
For Stricsek, this has led to an increasingly tight schedule that leaves little room to properly care for patients.
Last week, he was scheduled to see 20 patients for an eight hour shift. At a recent meeting, Stricsek’s medical director told him he would be seeing even more — up to 28.
“You can either take the time and feel like you’ve done right by your patients, or you can run on schedule,” Stricsek said. “It’s not possible to do both.”
Hyatt is only allotted 20 minutes to see each of his psychology patients — which concerns him due to the demographic of those that CHA serves.
Since it is a public hospital, many of CHA’s patients are newly-arrived immigrants and either do not have insurance or are on Medicaid. Each of these patient interactions on average “requires more resources, more time,” said Andrea Carceres, a lead organizer with SHARE CHA.
This, Carceres said, imposes an additional level of burnout and moral hazard for clinicians.
“It’s not sustainable,” she said.
“Our hope is really, with the union, that we can think together with the institution about how to make it more sustainable — and with that also a more viable and financially stable hospital,” Carceres added.
“We all want CHA to survive and thrive, but we can’t do it at the expense of the people who work there,” CHA physician associate Lia J. Rosenberg said.
—Staff writer Veronica H. Paulus can be reached at veronica.paulus@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @VeronicaHPaulus.
—Staff writer Aran Sonnad-Joshi can be reached at aran.sonnad-joshi@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @asonnadjoshi.
