The strike begins: UB resident doctors plan to 'stand our ground' in 4-day work stoppage (2024)

When University at Buffalo resident doctors and fellows formed a union in early 2023, Dr. Eun Beattie recalls that many of them “started out pretty scared” of speaking out against long-established training programs with grueling schedules that many physicians have likened to a hazing, pay-your-dues-like atmosphere.

The residents aren’t scared anymore.

Beattie and her colleagues went on strike Tuesday morning in what will be a four-day work stoppage as the residents and fellows continue to fight for a first contract with University Medical Resident Services, the employer of more than 800 residents and fellows in UB programs. The residents, represented by the Union of American Physicians and Dentists, work at hospitals and medical clinics across Western New York, meaning this high-stakes strike has the potential to disrupt certain health care services and operations through Friday.

In front of Buffalo General Medical Center about 9 a.m. Tuesday, about 75 doctors held signs, marched the sidewalks and chanted, aiming their frustration at top leadership at UMRS, UB and area hospitals. “Larry Ross, not my boss,” went one chant, directed at UMRS’ hired outside legal counsel, Lawrence M. Ross. “Dr. Brashear, you’re never here,” went another chant, aimed at Dr. Allison Brashear, dean of UB’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

Some residents held big head cardboard cutouts of top officials such as UB President Satish K. Tripathi and Kaleida Health President and CEO Don Boyd.

“I’m super proud of all the doctors that have learned over the past year to stand up for what’s right,” said Beattie, a fifth-year trainee at UB who is now a fellow in the pain medicine program. “For us to get this far and to stand our ground, it’s pretty incredible.”

The two sides have been bargaining for more than a year, and residents moved forward with the planned strike after a deal could not be reached over Labor Day weekend.

Rob Boreanaz, a labor attorney and the union’s lead negotiator, said they had a long bargaining session Sunday night. And after UMRS indicated it could not provide benefit payments to residents due to the financial structure of UMRS and the hospital stakeholders, the union calculated the monetary value of its benefit requests – about $5,600 per resident – and proposed that it be added to its salary offer.

Boreanaz said UMRS called the union at 7 p.m. Monday to say it likely wouldn’t respond to the proposal until the next bargaining session Sept. 9. At that point, it was clear an eleventh-hour agreement would not materialize before the strike.

“We’re always open to bargaining today, tomorrow and the next day,” Boreanaz said from the picket line. “Our phone is always available for calls. And so that’s the status of the bargaining right now. They got an offer on the table, and they’re sitting on it.”

In a statement Monday night, UMRS said it was disappointed that the residents had decided to move forward with the strike, given it had provided the “union with a salary proposal that is virtually the same as the union’s proposal.”

In addition, UMRS said the union on Sunday made a “last-minute demand, little more than 24 hours prior to the strike, for an additional $15 million in salary increases over three years.” The union, however, said that added salary amount was its potential solution to compensate for benefits that UMRS said it is unable to provide.

“Their counterproposal is not fiscally responsible for UMRS or the hospital training sites,” UMRS said. “It also fails to consider the critical role our local hospitals play in serving patients in our community. Additionally, it does not fully consider the tremendous value of the educational and training benefits provided to the residents by our hospitals and UB’s Office of Graduate Medical Education.”

The residents have consistently noted they make less than colleagues in other residency programs in upstate New York.

According to UB’s website, the current annual salary for medical residents ranges from $60,400 for postgraduate year one to $68,359 for postgraduate year seven. That salary doesn’t change whether a resident works a 40-hour workweek or up to the maximum 80 hours a week, which means a first-year resident working the maximum weekly hours could make around $14.52 an hour – which is less than minimum wage.

“I was surprised to learn how little they’re paid,” said Bill Jungels, a Buffalo resident who was on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus on Tuesday morning for a visit with a dermatologist.

Jungels said he’s had a number of trips to Buffalo General’s emergency room. While he’s been treated well there, he said he has waited six hours when staff is overburdened with patients. “I definitely sympathize not only with the residents being paid more but hiring more residents and more staff in general for the emergency room,” he said.

Mike Bronaugh, who said he worked at Buffalo General decades ago in maintenance and dietary, also stopped by the picket line on Tuesday and said the residents deserve to make more money since they have the education of a doctor. “I hope they hurry up and give y’all what you want,” Bronaugh, who said he goes by “Whistle Man,” told residents Tuesday morning over a speaker.

In a statement, the UB’s Jacobs School said it was encouraged an offer had been made by UMRS “to provide residents with a salary on par with their peers at upstate hospitals.”

While UMRS and the union appear to be making progress on salary proposals, it’s clear that health care – among other benefits – has become a major sticking point in negotiations.

Several residents have told The Buffalo News that changes were made to health care policies over the last year that have some residents now paying higher premiums and higher deductibles.

That’s a big deal to residents like Dr. Amanda Duggan, a second-year resident in the combined internal medicine and pediatrics program.

When she was a medical student and looking at UB residency programs, she recalled that fully paid health insurance premiums was part of UB’s recruiting pitch.

“I saw that Buffalo had one of the lowest salaries of any of the programs where I interviewed, but they told me to add another $5,000 onto that number, because I wasn’t going to pay health care premiums,” Duggan said. “So when I got here I had to pay those, so that was surprising.”

Last year, a few months into her first year of residency, Duggan was diagnosed with cancer and had to take six weeks off – four weeks of sick time and two weeks of vacation – to have surgery. She ran into further issues later on, she said, with paid time off being taken from her for missing a lecture to attend an appointment with the oncologist.

“One of the main reasons I’m out here today is because my co-workers were the ones that supported me the most when I needed them,” said Duggan, whose sign read, “Doctor with Cancer. No time off,” on Tuesday. “They’re my family now, and they’re also going through all this with me, like they have this $3,000 deductible on their health care – some of them, and they just deserve so much better than that. They were there for me. I’m here for them, and I don’t want anybody to have to go through what I went through.”

Beattie, the fifth-year trainee on the picket line Tuesday with her two young daughters, said the residents want wages that are in line with nearby residency programs as well as a solid health care plan “so that we can afford to go to the hospital if we’re sick.” She called it “ironic” that resident doctors providing health care in hospitals can’t afford to get health care treatment.

“For us to be asking for so little and for us to have to get to this point is disheartening,” she said.

News Staff Reporter Mark Sommer contributed to this story.