Nineteen nurse practitioners and 38 physician assistants at GoHealth urgent care clinics in Oregon and Washington joined Oregon Nurses Association (ONA) in January.
Workers in the newly unionized unit are Legacy Health employees but the 15 Portland-area clinics they work at are managed by GoHealth, a private-equity-backed chain of clinics in 19 states.
They voted 45-1 to unionize.
ONA spokesperson Kevin Mealy said they unionized because of inadequate staffing, wage stagnation, “ever-increasing productivity demands,” and a lack of autonomy in their practice.
Around 2,000 Legacy nurses will vote on unionization in February. Legacy pediatric physician specialists cast ballots in a unionization vote in January, but the results were 15-12, plus three challenged ballots, so the outcome won’t be clear until the challenged ballots are addressed.
Nurse practitioners and physician assistants, also called physician associates, perform work typically done by a physician, like prescribing medication.
