UMDNJ Residents Help Push Back Health Premium Increase
Drs. Gabriel Solarz and Mark Saxena show the petitions that helped defeat the unilateral premium increase. |
This June, the administration of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) made a sudden announcement: all employees, including the 1,100 CIR members who work in UMDNJ’s hospitals across the state, would now have 1.5% of their earnings deducted from each paycheck as a health insurance premium.
For CIR members at UMDNJ, this new deduction would have effectively cut in half the hard-won 3% raise they had secured for themselves during contract negotiations last year. “This was not only a question of money, it was also a question of principle,” explained Dr. Snehal Bhatt, CIR NJ Vice Pres., and a Psychiatry resident at UMDNJ Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center. “UMDNJ sought to introduce these deductions unilaterally, bypassing any discussion with employees about this significant change.”
CIR members responded quickly, forming a coalition with leaders from the other unions representing UMDNJ employees to circulate a petition demanding that the new deductions be rescinded. In only a matter of days, this coalition effort garnered thousands of signatures, and preparations began for a rally at a meeting of the UMDNJ trustees.
The rally never took place, as the response from less than two weeks of petitioning was so strong that UMDNJ administration quickly repealed the new premium. “This was a big victory for residents and other employees,” said Dr. Bhatt, “and it would not have been achieved without the collective strength we possessed by being unionized.”