For Immediate Release
Wednesday, August 27, 1997
Unions Join Forces To Fight Back Against For-Profit Medical Care Statement by AFSCME Pres. Gerald W. McEntee on UAPD affiliation with AFSCME
Alliance Links Nation's Largest Physicians' Union with Largest Union for Public Employees and Health Care Workers
San Francisco, CA —Launching what they see as a new era of physician activism, two of America’s most significant labor organizations for health care professionals today announced an affiliation agreement at a press conference in this city.
The affiliation between the 5000-member Union of American Physicians and Dentists (UAPD) and the 1.3 million-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) not only creates an instant alliance of over 8000 private and public sector physicians, but the managing of resources between the two groups provides the opportunity for a nationwide campaign to offset the negative impact of for-profit medical care.
(Prior to the affiliation, AFSCME represented over 350,000 men and women working in health care, including 3000 physicians.)
A major goal of the campaign, according to AFSCME International Union President Gerald W. McEntee, will be to amplify the voices of physicians, along with patients, in ongoing debates about American health care.
"It has become increasingly clear that health care corporations are more interested in profit share than patient care," McEntee said. "In their pursuit of higher and higher profits, health care corporations have reduced patient services by tying doctors’ hands behind their backs. Corporate bean-counters figured out that by prohibiting certain treatments and limiting doctors to prescribed courses of care, they could increase profits not only for the company, but for themselves."
As a result of this growing trend, McEntee said, increasing numbers of health care professionals—including doctors and dentists—are pursuing a "new voice in the exam room, in the operating room and in the board room" by organizing through labor unions.
The affiliation with UAPD, McEntee added, "brings to AFSCME a new depth and dimension of activism among physicians and dentists," while AFSCME "brings to UAPD the resources and strength that only a union of over 1.3 million members can offer."
Speaking at today’s press conference in San Francisco, UAPD President Robert Weinmann, MD, echoed McEntee’s concerns about the impact of profit-driven care and said the alliance between the two unions "brings a new era in health care dynamics.
"We now have the resources to counter the mega-greed of HMOs that ... deprive patients of specialty care and treatment by preventing physicians from practicing the best medicine they can," Weinmann added.
The HMOs, Weinmann noted, have turned American health care into "mangled care," a situation that must be reversed as soon as possible. As a result, he added, doctors across America "must realize that the days of hanging out their shingles and expecting patients to come in are over. The only way to counter HMOs is to forge a united labor front to protect the rights of patients and their doctors."
Union organizing among health care professionals is clearly on the rise. In the last year alone, AFSCME has won the rights to represent 2,600 registered nurses at San Diego-based Sharp HealthCare, as well as 140 physicians working for Thomas-Davis Medical Centers in Tucson, Arizona.
While acknowledging that both organizations will benefit from today’s affiliation, AFSCME President McEntee said that the real winners in this agreement are "physicians and the patients they care for. Both AFSCME and UAPD have fought to ensure that doctors, not corporate accountants, are ultimately the people treating patients. By joining forces, (we) will give doctors an even stronger voice in decisions about patient care."
