Via The National Tribute, Patrick Aguilar - who serves as Managing Director of Health at Washington University in St. Louis, reports: The share of Doctors who belong to Unions is rising quickly at a time when Organized Labor is losing ground with other professions. The Conversation U.S. asked Patrick Aguilar, a Washington University Pulmonologist and Management Professor, to explain why the number of Physicians joining Unions is growing - a trend that appears likely to continue. U.S. Nurses first joined Labor Unions in 1896. Today, about one in five Registered Nurses are Union Members, twice the rate of Unionization in all professions. The first Physicians’ Union formed in 1934, when hospital residents - Doctors in training who tended then, as now, to be paid relatively little and forced to work long hours - organized to demand higher pay and shorter shifts. For the next eight decades, those Unions grew slowly, but the pace has picked up. The share of Doctors who belong to Unions rose from 5.7% in 2014 to 7.2% in 2019. By 2024, an estimated 8% of Physicians were Union Members. This swift growth contrasts with declining Union Membership overall. The share of American Workers in Unions fell by more than half, from 20.1% to 9.9%, between 1983 and 2024. Residents and Interns are particularly interested in joining Unions with nearly two in three having said they might want to join one.

To Continue Reading This Organizing Labor News Report, Go To: Doctors are joining unions in a bid to improve working conditions and raise wages in a stressful health care system | The National Tribune