Workers announced the demand for union recognition in a Feb. 22 news release, citing a need to advocate for better working conditions, patient care standards and compensation.
“We had hoped our institution would have the bandwidth to advocate for us,” Meaghan Roy-O’Reilly, MD, PhD, a second-year neurology resident, said in the release. “Unfortunately, given the events that have elapsed over the past two years, we ultimately realized that we need to advocate for ourselves — and for each other.”
Stanford Health Care did not comment on the push for union recognition.
The demand for union recognition comes after resident physicians led a protest in December 2020 against a Stanford Medicine COVID-19 vaccination plan that excluded house staff from the initial round of shots. The health system immediately revised the plan to prioritize resident physicians.
The Committee of Interns and Residents is a local chapter of the Service Employees International Union. The union represents more than 20,000 resident physicians and fellows, including University of Massachusetts physicians in training, who unionized in March 2021.
