Medical residents and fellows at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora want the right to bargain as a group, but the school can choose whether or not to recognize their labor union.
People who work in the private sector and wish to form a union have a legal process to force their employer to recognize and bargain with the group. Colorado law doesn’t give the same right to public employees, meaning that the School of Medicine would have to agree to bargain with a union.
When asked about CU residents’ union, the School of Medicine said in a statement Friday that it “values the tremendous work that our residents and fellows provide in patient care, research and education of their peers and our medical students.”
“We work closely with resident leaders, hospital partners and program directors to ensure they have an excellent learning and working environment,” CU said.
University leadership meets with house staff at least monthly and involves them in decisions, said Mark Couch, associate dean of public relations for the School of Medicine. The school raised first year residents’ stipends by 13% in 2024 and will raise them another 6% this year, and plans to offer a retirement match and moving stipend, he said.
Other unions at quasi-public employers haven’t secured recognition. Staff at Denver Health attempted to form a union in 2020, and while they reported that management has met with some organizers about their concerns, the health system hasn’t granted them bargaining rights.
The CU House Staff Association, which represents about 1,300 residents and fellows, has consulted with the medical school on an informal basis since the 1960s, said Nik Kaufman, a hospice and palliative medicine fellow and the group’s co-president.
Collective bargaining would make sure the school doesn’t leave residents out of decisions and follows through on promises, he said.
Residents are doctors training in their fields for two to seven years after completing medical school. Fellows have completed residency, but are pursuing more specialized training. The medical school employs both groups and pays a stipend for patient care that they provide under fully-trained doctors’ supervision.
The top priority is increasing compensation, because some residents work more than 80 hours a week and earn less than Denver’s $18.81 minimum wage for those hours, Kaufman said. (Minimum wage doesn’t apply to most salaried people.) They also would push for greater benefits, he said.
“We want them to not have to worry about making ends meet, at the end of a really long shift, to be able to get takeout without having to worry about overdrafting their account,” Kaufman said.
At CU, residents in their first year, often called the internship year, earn about $75,000. Compensation increases over time, with residents whose programs last seven years earning just short of $100,000 in their final year.
About one-fifth of medical residents nationwide belong to the largest union, the Committee of Interns and Residents. The House Staff Association doesn’t plan to join a larger union.
The School of Medicine initially appeared receptive to the request, but then referred the group to the CU Board of Regents, who hasn’t been willing to recognize them so far, said Allison Martin, a pathology resident and co-president of the House Staff Association.
Representatives for the Board of Regents didn’t respond to questions Friday.
The group plans to meet with the chancellor of CU’s Anschutz Medical Campus on Monday to discuss how they might move forward.
“This is the most reasonable thing we think we could ask for,” she said.
Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get health news sent straight to your inbox.