Physicians at Salem Hospital, Part of Mass General Brigham, Vote to Unionize

Physicians at Salem Hospital, part of Mass General Brigham, have voted to unionize, adding to a resurgent and growing trend in healthcare nationwide.

The group voted 72 to 16 last Wednesday to join the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 93, a spokesperson for the union confirmed to MedPage Today.

Sean Codier, DO, an emergency medicine physician at Salem Hospital, told MedPage Today that the effort is aimed at “giving physicians a voice again,” both at their facility and others nationwide.

When physicians were independent, they “had a say when things were not going the way they should be,” Codier said. However, this is something that has “disappeared from medicine,” as “groups have been bought up by hospitals and health systems.”

Increasingly, concerns have grown about how healthcare has consolidated, including providers “getting further and further squeezed” and “not being able to ensure the same quality of care we did 10 years ago,” he said. This is “something that’s felt universally,” he added, amid the continued corporatization of healthcare.

As physicians, “we really view ourselves as being the guardians of our community,” Codier said.

Codier and colleagues have been working on their organizing efforts for about 10 months.

AFSCME Council 93 stated in an announcement issued earlier this year that the physicians “view unionization as the best and perhaps only way to improve patient care at a community hospital beset by budget cutbacks, short-staffing, and decision-making without the input of front-line staff.”

The efforts at Salem Hospital are just the latest in a flurry of ongoing organizing activity among physicians and other healthcare professionals across the U.S.

The trend has not seen any signs of slowing down in 2024, and healthcare workers have continued to tell MedPage Today that they have been encouraged by watching each other.

Earlier this month, physicians and advanced practice providers at Bicycle Health — which provides telehealth treatment to patients with opioid use disorder in more than 30 states — filed with the National Labor Relations Board to unionize with the Union of American Physicians and Dentists (UAPD).

Previous efforts this year have included those by anesthesiologists at Beverly Anesthesiology and Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, who voted in favor of joining the UAPD, as well as more than 600 advanced practice providers at the Oregon Health & Science University Hospital system in Portland, who announced their intent to join the Oregon Nurses Association.

As for Mass General Brigham, it has seen other notable unionization efforts during the current surge.

Last June, resident physicians and fellows at Mass General Brigham in Boston voted to join the Committee of Interns and Residents, despite receiving a significant salary increase.

Mass General Brigham did not immediately respond to MedPage Today’s request for comment regarding the physician vote at Salem Hospital.

AFSCME Council 93, which is based in Boston, already represents about 45,000 public and private sector workers in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, according to the union.

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