{"id":783509,"date":"2026-07-25T09:58:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T09:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/783509\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T09:58:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T09:58:16","slug":"uc-doctors-seek-to-unionize-10000-colleagues-in-massive-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/783509\/","title":{"rendered":"UC Doctors Seek to Unionize 10,000 Colleagues in Massive Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Attending physicians say they aim to improve working conditions, protect research and improve patient care at UC medical centers. <\/p>\n<p>Jul 24, 2026<\/p>\n<p>Updated 1:43 pm PT<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/UCDoctors2.jpg\"  alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Doctors at a press conference held by UCSF attending doctors to announce the UC unionization effort with SEIU Doctors United at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital on July 23, 2026 in San Francisco, California. Doctors have historically not formed unions, but interest in collective bargaining has risen in recent years. &#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0(Thos Robinson\/Getty Images for SEIU Doctors United)<\/p>\n<p class=\"blocks-v1-Paragraph-__Paragraph__paragraph wp-block wp-block-paragraph container\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kqed.org\/news\/tag\/university-of-california\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">University of California<\/a> is confronting a large unionization effort among employees who have historically stayed outside of unions: doctors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"blocks-v1-Paragraph-__Paragraph__paragraph wp-block wp-block-paragraph container\">At Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital on Thursday, doctors and physicians announced their plans to form a union with SEIU Doctors United \u2014 a partnership between Doctors Council, Service Employees International Union and Committee of Interns and Residents that represents more than 45,000 doctors nationwide.<\/p>\n<p class=\"blocks-v1-Paragraph-__Paragraph__paragraph wp-block wp-block-paragraph container\">The move points to a marked shift in the healthcare industry, where in the past, it has been somewhat rare for generally highly paid doctors to form unions.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"blocks-v1-Paragraph-__Paragraph__paragraph wp-block wp-block-paragraph container\">But interest in collective bargaining within the medical profession has accelerated, particularly post-pandemic, as more physicians report deteriorating working conditions and a loss of clinical autonomy amidst an increasingly consolidated and profit-driven industry.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/UCDoctors3.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12092511\"  \/>Doctors attend a press conference held by UCSF attending doctors to announce the UC unionization effort with SEIU Doctors United at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital on July 23, 2026, in San Francisco, California. <\/p>\n<p class=\"blocks-v1-Paragraph-__Paragraph__paragraph wp-block wp-block-paragraph container\">Attending physicians at UC, who make clinical decisions and often supervise residents and medical students, said they are stretched thin with unsustainable patient loads, understaffing and less decision-making power \u2014 concerns often echoed by nurses and other patient care workers with higher union participation rates.<\/p>\n<p class=\"blocks-v1-Paragraph-__Paragraph__paragraph wp-block wp-block-paragraph container\">\u201cSometimes I do feel, especially as a primary care physician, overwhelmed,\u201d Dr. Radhika Rajan, a UCSF pediatrician at SF General, told KQED. \u201cThe work that we have to do does not stop when we are leaving [the] clinic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"blocks-v1-Paragraph-__Paragraph__paragraph wp-block wp-block-paragraph container\">\u201cSo many of us are excited to unionize because the goal is to be able to have the resources to provide better care for our patients,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"blocks-v1-Paragraph-__Paragraph__paragraph wp-block wp-block-paragraph container\">UC declined to comment on the attending physicians\u2019 organizing campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Attending physicians say they aim to improve working conditions, protect research and improve patient care at UC medical&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-783509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}