A group of doctors who work at both Rwjbarnabas Health and Rutgers University voted for the union earlier this week, union officials said.
The doctor who works for Rutgers 10% of the time and 90% of rwjbarnabas was hired as a “clinically focused university practitioner” or CFUP. They are both doctors and faculty at state universities.
Union officials said about 75% of doctors who took part in the vote that chose to join the state of New Jersey, a US university professor known as AAUP-BHSNJ.
AAUP-BHSNJ represents physicians and other medical professionals at Rutgers University.
The group has 157 clinically focused university practitioners. 55% participated in the union vote. According to the final tally, the official vote was between 66 and 21.
All 157 doctors will be part of the new union, union officials said. However, votes do not affect other physicians in the RWJBARNABAS system.
Health officials at Rwjbarnabas said their organization is always union friendly.
“We recognize our right to organize our employees and have actually agreed to the elections conducted by the National Labor Relations Commission,” the company said in a statement.
RWJBARNABAS Health hosted information sessions that helped answer employee questions, the company said.
“It is essential that employees hear from both their employers and their unions before voting. We look forward to working with AAUP to a fair contract,” the statement said. “As always, our goal is to arrive at a positive solution that supports both employees and patients with high quality care.”
Rutgers officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
While it is common for nurses and other hospital workers to be represented by unions, it is relatively rare for doctors to unionize in a large healthcare system.
Dr. Chris Simotas, a pediatrician with a rare genetic disorder, is one of the doctors who voted to join the union. He said one of his biggest concerns was the starting salary for university practitioners, which is clinically focused.
Based on salary data from the National Survey, Shimotas said he learned that “if I'm a Rutgers employer, I'd somehow get below the floor.”
This vote will affect clinically focused university practitioners working statewide at RWJ Barnabas facilities, including more than 10 hospitals.
Doctors are working with doctors hired by Rutgers that are not available to them, including more job safety and free Rutgers tuition fees for dependents, union officials said. Integration means that physicians can negotiate jointly with RWJ Barnabas for their next contract.
“These scholars are tired of being cheap and calm and are not going to do that anymore,” said Trent McDonald, organizer of the Rutgers chapter of the American Association known as AAUP-aft. The union represents 10,000 academic workers.
McDonald says he hopes doctors will win “lowest parity” with his peers hired by Rutgers.
“When they got promoted, they received nothing but a title change,” McDonald said.
Rutgers University and the RWJBARNABAS Health Hospital chain formed a long-term partnership in 2018 to increase federal funding, attract top physicians, and help improve the profile of New Jersey's medical research.
Rwjbarnabas urged doctors to vote “no” to join the union and held a town hall meeting to discuss unionization efforts, the union said. The healthcare giant also hired consultants who previously opposed efforts to form a union on Amazon, according to Amazon and union officials.
At least 30% of eligible physicians in the group signed union cards previously in favor of their interest in union formation, leading to the election process through the National Labor Relations Commission, which lasted more than two weeks. It ended when the vote counted Tuesday.
After President Donald Trump took office, the National Labor Relations Commission, like many other federal agencies, lost some staff. However, union officials said the voting process went relatively smoothly.
“They were all working very, very hard,” McDonald said of the staff at the National Labor Relations Commission, which oversaw the process.
Todd Wolfson, Rutgers' associate professor of journalism and media studies and national AAUP president, hopes that victory could lead to more organized doctors.
The corporateization of academic medicine has aggravated working conditions for physicians, patient care, and training of medical students and residents,” Wolfson said. “We have already heard from other RWJBH doctors that they would like to join our union and are welcomed with open arms.”
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Liz Rosenberg can visit lrosenberg@njadvancemedia.com.
