Penn Medicine residents vote to approve union contract, a first for Pennsylvania

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Resident doctors at Penn Medicine have voted to accept their first union contract, after more than a year of negotiations with the health system. The decision makes them the first residency program in Pennsylvania with a union contract.

The residents unionized with the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR/SEIU). Some of their demands were higher salaries that compensated them for working up to 80 hours a week, a better paid parental leave policy, clean rooms to sleep in during overnight shifts and other benefits to improve working conditions.

The contract they ratified gives them a more than 25% salary increase; eight weeks of paid parental leave (up from six); guarantees that they will have call rooms where they can sleep and keep their belongings secure during 24-hour or overnight shifts; and rides home after long or late shifts.

The contract also includes protections against excessive “out-of-title” work like transporting patients, drawing blood or scheduling appointments, which a union spokesperson said is the strongest policy they have ever won for residents.

Union members voted over the past few days, and more than 99% of people who voted chose to ratify the new contract.

In a statement, Penn Medicine said they are pleased to have reached a contract with the union, and that while they cannot comment on the specifics of the contract, they “value Penn Medicine’s residents as part of our dedicated workforce that provides exceptional patient care every day.”

Dr. Leah Rethy, a second-year cardiology fellow, said she is happy with the contract, especially the higher wages and expanded parental leave. She gave birth to her first child during the second year of her residency.

“It’s particularly important, or at least I think so, to have extra time at home in the postpartum period or in the early weeks of the baby’s life. Because once we go back to work, our schedules are very hectic and we aren’t able to spend as much time at home,” she said. “I won’t benefit from it myself, but I’m happy that others will be able to get a few extra weeks outside the hospital.”

She also said the contract codified some policies that used to vary depending on individual supervisors. For example, she said the contract now guarantees time and facilities for pumping breast milk; in the past, it was not an enforceable policy.

“I certainly had some times where I was going too long between sessions and causing problems … for both me physically as well as … output for my child,” she said. “I ultimately was able to force the issue and make sure that I was pumping regularly enough to keep myself healthy and then also my baby. But it … really felt very much like something that I had to demand as an individual rather than there being a real policy that I could fall back on.”

Dr. Ianto Xi, a fourth-year radiology resident, said he is relieved to reach the end of a long bargaining process. He said in the beginning, he had the impression that Penn Medicine management did not take the residents seriously.

“When we had the vote for the union itself, I very distinctly remember talking to a lot of them and I think that they just honestly didn’t know us that well,” he said, adding that it was the first time he was able to personally meet any of them in the hospital.

He said the process showed him that there’s strength in numbers, especially when hundreds of residents showed up to the virtual bargaining sessions.

“[Management] only ever had like four or five people there at a time, whereas we had hundreds of people there at the table demonstrating like, ‘Hey, this is who you’re paying to help your patients in the hospital. This is why we all matter because we’re out there all the time and we’re here to show you that we’re also here at the table.'”

He said that with a union contract in place, they can now go directly to management about workplace concerns.

“It’s a game of telephone otherwise,” he said. “You have messages that are passed up and down and they get distorted and you don’t have the correct allocation of resources where you need it.”

Dr. Yombe Fonkeu, a third-year neurology resident, said that at first, management said they cannot meet residents’ demands because of the health system’s finances, and he speculates that the collective actions from the union made a difference.

For instance, the union organized a large public rally around the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania earlier this year with hundreds of people and state and local politicians attending.

While Penn Medicine is the first medical residency program to unionize in Pennsylvania, this comes as other programs around the country are also unionizing in the wake of the pandemic.

The residents at the University of Buffalo held a four-day strike at the start of the month. Last year, residents at Elmhurst Hospital in New York held a three-day strike, the first from hospital doctors in the city in more than 30 years.

“Yes, there’s like tens of thousands of residents out there, but we all are in communication nowadays with social media and people having connections from medical school,” Fonkeu said. “You understand the plight that other folks are going through when they get to the point of striking.”