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The union push at Legacy Health gathered momentum this week as 171 doctors, physician assistants and nurse practitioners took steps to organize ahead of a possible purchase by Oregon Health & Science University.
The group submitted union authorization cards to the National Labor Relations Board, which will hold a hearing and set a date for an election. The Legacy workers would join the Pacific Northwest Hospital Medicine Association, the union that organized 200 hospitalists at Legacy in November. Hospitalists are physicians who care only for hospital inpatients.
Legacy operates six hospitals and 70 clinics, including Portland’s Emanuel and Good Samaritan hospitals. The health system didn’t have much of a union presence until 2019, when 172 nurses at the Unity Center for Behavioral Health voted to join the Oregon Nurses Association.
The union drive accelerated in August after OHSU said it was exploring a purchase of Legacy Health, a deal that would likely concentrate hospitals’ power in the metro region and could lead to job cuts. More broadly, doctors in the Northwest and elsewhere are turning to collective bargaining as they go from being business owners to employees.
Legacy doctors say they are unionizing to fight burnout, which became epidemic during COVID-19, and to ensure patient safety. Legacy has lost three dozen primary care doctors since 2022, when the company announced a new compensation system, according to a doctor who has been keeping track but wished to remain anonymous.
Legacy declined to comment on those figures.
“Primary care has a significant level of burnout, as evidenced by the numbers of primary care providers leaving this profession,” Dr. Angela Marshall Olson, who works at Legacy Medical Group–Raleigh Hills, said in a statement. “It’s vital for us to have a place at the table to discuss provider retention strategies, which will elevate patient care and staff satisfaction.”
In a statement to WW, Legacy Health said it “respects the rights of our employees to choose whether or not to be represented by a union. We appreciate the continued hard work and dedication of our primary care providers, who play a vital role in delivering high-quality care to our patients and communities. We are committed to establishing a productive dialogue with the union representatives who will be working with Legacy on behalf of these providers.”
In an email to staff, Gwen Grewe, Legacy’s clinical vice president for primary care, and Chuck Bruce, chief operating officer at Legacy Medical Group, said they supported people’s interest in union representation but that Legacy “prefers to work directly and collaboratively with all of our provider colleagues.”
Relations haven’t been hunky dory so far at Legacy. Last month, unionized hospitalists filed a charge with the NLRB, alleging that Legacy cut hours worked by hospitalists without sufficient bargaining. The new schedule means that each doctor will have more patients to juggle during a given shift, the union said.
Legacy would say little about the changes. “Legacy regularly adjusts scheduling in response to health care needs across our organization,” the company said in a statement. “We are always focused on staffing appropriately to provide the best possible patient care, and we will continue to work constructively with the union on this matter.”