Our SHARE Union is growing. SHARE at UMass Memorial Healthcare has long been the largest union at the largest employer in central Massachusetts. And our bargaining unit is now the largest it’s ever been, with over 3700 individuals. Over 97% in that group are dues-paying SHARE members, and our union has never been stronger.
The New SHARE: Cambridge Health Alliance
Meanwhile, SHARE’s reputation — and our footprint — is growing, too. When physician assistants, psychiatrists, psychologists and physicians at Cambridge Health Alliance (a hospital network with sites in Cambridge, Everett, Malden, and Somerville) learned of SHARE’s unique union model, they created their own organizing drive with a SHARE spirit. Their union has now been recognized by the Massachusetts Department of Labor Relations.
SHARE-CHA focuses on making sure every person’s voice is heard in their institution, on collaboration with their co-workers and community, and on participation in designing processes to deliver the best possible patient care. Caregivers there voted overwhelmingly to form SHARE-CHA. Their union will soon begin negotiating their first contract and work to forge partnership with hospital system leaders there. We’re excited to share with SHARE-CHA what we’ve learned over the years about developing a strong union, and to learn ideas from their perspective about improving healthcare at the front lines.
SHARE at Marlborough Hospital
At the same time, our sister SHARE union at Marlborough Hospital just reached a contract agreement with UMass Memorial. Employees at Marlborough started their own SHARE union in 2018. Marlborough Hospital recently came under the UMass Medical Center umbrella, which brings our unions even closer together. Their two-year contract agreement includes a new partnership agreement with Unit Based Teams, as well as good raises each year.
SHARE at UMass Chan Medical School
There are many challenges coming in the fields of healthcare and health research, and our unions be looking to one another for strength. Our sister SHARE union at UMass Chan Medical School is currently entering contract negotiations with their employer at a particularly hard time. You may have heard in the news recently that, in response to the deep cuts to NIH funding, UMass Chan has already rescinded offers to incoming PhD students, and announced a hiring and spending freeze. You can listen to a brief interview with SHARE Organizer Elisabeth Szanto about the situation in this news broadcast from NBC Boston.
Harvard University, which is supported by many members in our sister union at the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW), is also deeply affected: this article lists Harvard’s School of Public Health as the second-largest recipient of NIH grants nationally within the category of schools of public health.