These Tacoma hospital physicians vote to unionize ahead of move to new campus
Pediatric physicians at MultiCare’s Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma have voted to unionize, according to an announcement released Thursday.
One hundred physicians at Mary Bridge voted Wednesday to organize with Northwest Medicine United “so they can formally engage with hospital administrators through a collective bargaining agreement on decisions that will improve patient care,” according to the release.
“We came together to have a voice in the decisions that impact our patients. In a time of growing challenges, physicians must be at the table to advocate for the children and families we serve,” Dr. Andrea Gravatt, emergency medicine physician, said in a statement.
Gravatt has been employed with Mary Bridge for 20 years.
Northwest Medicine United, formerly known as the Pacific Northwest Hospital Medicine Association, founded in 2014, also represents physicians at PeaceHealth, Providence and Legacy Health.
The union is part of AFT Nurses and Health Professionals, which represents more than 200,000 healthcare workers and is part of the 1.8 million-member AFT affiliated with the AFL-CIO.
MultiCare told The News Tribune in an emailed statement in response to questions, “A subset of physicians at Mary Bridge Children’s voted this week for union representation.“
It added, “We respect our physicians’ right to decide their representation. Regardless of whether our team members are represented by a union or not, we will continue our work in ensuring Mary Bridge Children’s is a place of excellence for our teams and our patients.”
Dr. Derek Tam is a pediatric emergency physician at Mary Bridge. He told The News Tribune via email in response to questions that the union effort at the hospital ”has been ongoing since late last year.”
“The fact that we’ve reached this point so quickly speaks to the expertise of NWMU and AFT as well as to the urgency with which we approached this issue,” he added.
He noted that the union “encompasses dozens of physicians across a wide breadth of specialties within pediatrics, and so our main priority as a whole is to ensure that all departments, big or small, have their needs met as much as possible.”
As for the emergency department, he said, “One of our priorities will be ensuring that our physicians have the resources we need to continue to provide the safest and highest level of emergency care that the children and families of Washington deserve, particularly as we gear up to move into the new hospital building.”
MultiCare is in the midst of developing a new Mary Bridge campus, planned to open early next year. The site will include a new inpatient hospital tower, ambulatory building with specialty clinics and urgent-care services, and new parking structures.
Tam added that another priority for contract negotiations will include “ensuring that the physicians in each department are able to determine how their respective departments run in terms of day-to-day operations and decision-making.”
Tam said the group also anticipates “a more transparent relationship with hospital administration that will allow all parties to succeed and continue to grow our footprint in the community.”
As for previous union efforts, MultiCare’s Auburn Medical Center’s physicians organized with the Union of American Physicians and Dentists in 2016. UAPD also represents primary care staff members with the health system’s Indigo Urgent Care centers.
