LATEST UPDATE: St. Barnabas Residents Speak Out Against Violence in the Community. Read more here.

WE ARE CIR!

We are the resident physicians at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx.  If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that it’s more important than ever in these tough economic times for housestaff to have a voice in our hospital.

On January 13, 2009, we delivered a petition to the hospital administration signed by a full 87% of the resident doctors employed by the hospital, asking that they recognize us as a bargaining unit with the Committee of Interns and Resident/SEIU Healthcare. 

We decided to join CIR in response to low pay, poor benefits and the hospital’s inadequate support of the educational portion of the residency programs. We have all experienced a series of incidents that created an atmosphere of disrespect and penny-pinching. For example, the hospital recently began requiring that resident physicians, as “non-union employees,” pay for a portion of their health insurance premiums.

Since we delivered our petition, we have gone through the appropriate process and participated in hearings at the National Labor Relations Board.  It’s been a long road, and we fully expect it will take even longer before the administration finally gives us the opportunity to hold an election.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t start acting like a union now, upholding CIR’s guiding principles of improving our working conditions and being advocates for better patient care.

You can learn about our cause and our issues, about the hospital and the community that we serve, and even learn how you can help the resident physicians at St. Barnabas have a voice in our workplace!