Alarmed by a spate of shootings and violent incidents in the neighborhood around St. Barnabas, resident physicians decided to speak out. In January, they sent a letter to the Mary Mitchell Center, a community center serving area youth, offering their support for anti-violence efforts in the community. In November, 2008, a teenager was shot and killed just outside the basketball court of the center.

Click below to read the letter signed by St. Barnabas doctors:

Letter to the Mary Mitchell Community

The resident physicians at St. Barnabas voted by secret ballot on Thursday, June 18, 2009 on whether to join the Committee of Interns and Residents/SEIU Healthcare, and they are confident that the vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the union.

Sadly, the votes were not counted, despite the physicians fighting for the last five months for the hospital to recognize their right to join a union.

Why? Because the hospital has appealed the National Labor Relations Board decision allowing the residents to organize a union, and until their appeal is reviewed, the ballots will be impounded.

The hospital continues to cling to its position that resident physicians – who work up to 80 hours, six days a week – are students, and therefore not employees. In fact, this issue was decided in 1999 with a decision stating that Boston Medical Center residents were considered full employees, regardless of the educational components of residency.

It’s unclear how long the votes will be impounded. In the meantime, the hospital is also challenging the votes of nearly a third of the 280 residents on spurious grounds. Even with the challenges, it appears the vote will be nearly unanimous in favor of the union, once the ballots are finally counted. Observers estimated that about 170 residents voted.

Residents are eager to move past this stage of the organizing campaign and begin to negotiate with the hospital for measures that will improve patient care.

We received a notice this week that the election has been scheduled! The NLRB election will be held June 18, 2009. Residents can vote in the 4th Floor Radiology Conference Room during the following hours:

6:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.

11:00 a.m. to 2 p.m.

4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

May 29, 2009 — Assemblymember José Rivera of the 78^th District sent a letter to the administration of St. Barnabas Hospital urging them allow the residents to organize as CIR.  Read the letter.

Law 360, an online news and resource service for business lawyers, published an article today on the legal findings of the National Labor Relations Board in the case of the St. Barnabas residents, following the NLRB’s ruling on Friday in favor of the residents forming a union:

The hospital’s management had pushed the NLRB to examine whether the board’s decision in a 1999 ruling in a similar case involving Boston Medical Center could be applied to this case, or whether it should be re-examined.

The NLRB’s ruling in the Boston Medical Center case concluded that resident physicians at private hospitals are both employees and students and are covered by the National Labor Relations Act.

The hospital argued the Boston Medical Center case should get a second look from the NLRB, pointing in part to the Pension Funding Equity Act of 2003, which provides the employer with federal funding to train doctors, the Friday ruling noted, saying it had altered the definition of an employee in these types of cases.

But Mattina rejected the hospital’s arguments that subsequent legislation should force a second look at the Boston Medical precedent. “The clear and very specific purpose of this temporary legislation has nothing to do with the definition of employee under the NLRA,” said Mattina.

Read the full article on the Law 360 Web site (subscription required)