Nearly 120 Labcorp laboratory professionals serving Providence Portland have filed their public intention to unionize today. These healthcare workers chose to join the 6,000 member Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals (OFNHP), a local affiliate of the 1.8 million member AFT national union. These lab workers are employed by the for-profit company Labcorp, which is contracted by Providence to provide the Portland area hospital’s lab services.
"We decided to unionize because we want to ensure a stable, well-trained, well-staffed medical laboratory is available to our community. By unionizing we can have a strong voice for our patients and ourselves, ensuring a positive future for healthcare in this region,” says Allister Brister-Smith, a Laboratory Services Team Lead at Labcorp’s Halsey Street lab.
Labcorp workers, which include highly skilled positions such as medical technologists, lab specialists, and accessioners serve alongside many of the Providence healthcare workers who are currently on strike as members of the AFT-affiliated Oregon Nurses Association (ONA). Labcorp’s self-stated policy is to “operate the Company in a non-union environment,” and during other union organizing drives they have hired anti-union consultants in an attempt to persuade their lab professionals against unionizing. Despite Labcorp’s anti-union behavior, OFNHP recently unionized over 400 Labcorp workers at twelve facilities housed in the Legacy hospital system. Those workers are currently negotiating their first union contract. Now that the Halsey Street workers have filed their intention to form a union, they will hold a democratic election where workers will vote on whether to join the union.
These lab professionals were inspired by the thousands of healthcare professionals who are currently striking across the Providence system and acknowledge that they are fighting for the same issues as those currently walking the picket line, such as living wages and safe staffing levels. These workers are the latest in a mass wave of healthcare unionization and worksite victories, both for OFNHP and the broader American labor movement. In 2023, OFNHP led a nearly 1,500 worker strike in the PeaceHealth system, which included lab professionals at PeaceHealth St. John. Later this year OFNHP will negotiate one of the biggest union contracts of the decade with Kaiser Permanente as part of the almost 60,000 worker Alliance of Healthcare Unions, which will include lab professionals that serve the entire Kaiser Northwest region.