First Emergency Physician, PA, & NP Union Agrees to "Historic" Contract with Providence Medford
Terms include a 20.7% base wage increase for physicians, significant pay increases for EM PAs & NPs, enhanced shift differentials, continuing education benefits, and workplace safety improvements.
This is a special guest post by Bryce Pulliam, MD, an emergency physician in Medford, Oregon.
This week, we reached a tentative agreement on our first contract as the Southern Oregon Providers Association (SOPA) union, which represents the emergency physicians, PAs, and nurse practitioners at Providence Medford Medical Center. SOPA is affiliated with the Oregon Nurses Association and the American Federation of Teachers.
Highlights of the contract terms:
2 year contract – expires January 2027
20.7% base wage increase for physicians
Average of $5.00/hr base pay increase for APRNs/PAs with improved wage scale and increased shift differentials yielding a nearly 20% total wage increase
Guarantee increase of the base rate of pay for all providers of 3.0% in the second year of the contract
Significant increases in shift differentials for night (Docs and APPs) and evening (APPs) hours
Closed shop - mandatory union membership except for bona fide religious objections (still required to make a charitable donation in place of union dues)
Protections against replacing union employees with non-union contract providers
Progressive discipline
Grievance processes
Labor Management Committee – joint Union/Management committee to work to ensure contract implementation and compliance.
Emergency Medicine Resource Committee - joint Union/Management committee to focus on practice and departmental resource needs and goals
Workplace Safety provisions
Limits ED attending responsibilities outside of the ED to Code Blues and "anticipated difficult [emergent inpatient] intubations."
We are hoping for ratification by February 8, 2025, after a vote by our members. We do not anticipate resistance to ratification. Our members have been very involved in the bargaining process and see this as a huge win.
To my knowledge, this is a first for an attending emergency medicine union to reach a collective bargaining agreement in the US. As the chair of the bargaining team, I can say that it's been a long year of bargaining to get to this point, but I am cautiously optimistic that this is a huge gain for our group and lays the foundation for further improvements in patient care, physician safety, and working conditions.
- Bryce
Dr. Bryce Pulliam is a community emergency physician in Southern Oregon, where he has worked at Providence Medford Medical Center since 2012. He is a founding member of the Southern Oregon Providers Association, one of the first-ever US Emergency Medicine unions. He completed medical school at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine, and did his residency training at the University of California, Davis Medical Center, in Sacramento, California. He lives with his wife and 3 children on their small family farm.
For more background on the Southern Oregon Providers Association union, check out the MedPage Today article by Dr. Pulliam, “How I Became a Union Doctor — We formed the first-ever emergency medicine union to promote patient safety.”
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congrats on a BIG WIN ! I am not generally a "union guy" but this may be the best way to improve our specialty. The wage gains are great, but in general I am most interested in the specifics of the safety conditions and resources clauses.
Dr Adelman - do you have the data on how many ED's in Providence and the breakdown on employed, single hospital group, CMG ?
As a large "not for profit (LOL)" system Providence could be a great starting point to roll up the various ED's and rid our specialty of boarding patients and inadequate staffing.