New York interns, residents get NLRB nod to join union

The new union members now belong to the Committee of Interns and Residents.

By Tanya Albert, AMNews staff. April 16, 2001.

More than 500 interns, residents and fellows at two New York hospitals joined the ranks of organized labor in March.

The National Labor Relations Board recognized that 450 physicians at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center will be represented by the Committee of Interns and Residents labor union. The group voted 283-44 to join the union.

At Our Lady of Mercy Hospital Center in the Bronx, 110 resident and fellow physicians voted to join CIR.

"CIR will allow us to work with the administration to make sure our concerns are addressed," said Candace Thornton-Spann, MD, an internal medicine intern at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, in a statement.

Interns, residents and fellows at both hospitals chose to organize unions because they were concerned about nursing and other ancillary staff cutbacks and they wanted a voice in how patient care is delivered. The group was also concerned about salaries, how much meals cost and other economic issues.

CIR represents more than 11,000 housestaff in more than 60 hospitals in California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York.

Residents, interns and fellows won the right to unionize after a 1999 court decision.

In other union news, Physicians for Responsible Negotiation in March finished negotiating its inaugural collective bargaining agreement with The Wellness Plan, a Michigan-based health maintenance organization. [...]