Being a clinician today means facing difficult questions. How do we achieve a work-life balance when we have too much work and not enough time to do it? How do we decide between what is right for us and our license and what is right for our patients? Why are we spending so much time doing administrative tasks that aren’t fulfilling — open charts looming over our heads, lunch meetings, prior authorizations?
The invisible work of health care is taxing — taking charts home to finish at night or on the weekends, doing the job we trained for plus the parts we didn’t train for (interfacing with insurance comes to mind), all while facing pressure to keep everyone happy before ourselves, and all while operating in a system that continues to evolve away from patient-centered and evidence-based practice in favor of the bottom line. As individuals, it often feels like nothing can be done when we realize that it’s not just our job, not just our office, not just our health care system, but the entire industry that’s structured this way. Profits over patients. And yet, there is one thing we can do.
We can join a union.
When you sign up, pay those dues, and get involved, the struggle is no longer yours alone: you stand in solidarity with hundreds of thousands of other union members who know how you feel. And you have the support of dedicated representatives who know how to negotiate fair agreements that will benefit the many, not the few.
We’ve all heard the saying “if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.” In health care, this is certainly true. For all of the lip service about teamwork, in reality we are quite isolated in our work lives. We endure a dearth of mechanisms for addressing systemic problems. A lack of transparency regarding compensation and benefits. A lack of representation of labor when big decisions are made. For all these issues and more, unions can help. The fights for safer staffing ratios, improved compensation, better benefits, advocacy for legislation that benefits the worker, and retirement with dignity have been most effectively fought with the collective bargaining of unions.
And though unions benefit everyone, they are especially beneficial for nurses. Nurses are the largest segment of the health care workforce, which gives us tremendous strength in numbers. With unions, we are no longer isolated. We can negotiate on standards that will improve our work experience (and by extension, patient care). If we continue to internalize the negative propaganda around unions — the messaging saying unionization isn’t necessary, would never work, and only costs more money — we lose. When we lose, our patients lose, our communities lose, and our society loses. When we realize our power and work together to advocate for ourselves as we advocate for our patients, we win, our patients win, our communities win, and our society wins.
This isn’t a novel idea. In 2025, we have already seen several strikes by union nurses. Common themes are inadequate staffing, unsafe working conditions, and nurse and patient safety. The results of these strikes are compelling, in some cases establishing standards that could impact labor dynamics on a broad level — such as an Oregon Nurses Association strike that resulted in a bill passed in the state Senate that allows workers to receive unemployment benefits. In Massachusetts, nurses won a 15.5% pay increase and enhanced workplace violence policies with post-crisis support. In Tacoma, WA, the nurses union won equal pay for international nurses and enhanced workplace safety provisions, including weapons detectors and locked units. When nurses stand together, the benefits are far-reaching.
Is joining a union going to solve every problem? No. Are unions perfect? Also no. But a lone voice crying out in the wilderness does not typically have the power to solve problems. If you want to go far, go together.
So I’m joining a union, as an at-large member — not part of an organized workplace, but out of solidarity with other nurses. Do I need the advocacy that being part of a union provides? Not currently. Although I have it good right now, I stand in solidarity with other clinicians who are struggling.
Joining a union as an at-large member allows me to be a part of the change that I want to see in health care and in nursing. Our workplaces need to serve us at least as well as we serve them. Having representation to fight on our behalf is an important part of that. The health care industry is getting increasingly intolerable for the workers. The time has come to focus on solutions. If there is a way to drive systemic change that benefits all, that allows us to stand in solidarity rather than wither in isolation, I believe it is worth exploring. I believe in unions.
Have you joined a union? Share your experience in the comments!
Jessica Reeves is a nurse practitioner as interested in the well-being of her fellow clinicians as that of her patients — and she's on a mission to make the work world a better place to live. She writes, works, and lives in the town that holds the world record for most lit jack-o-lanterns (really). Follow her at jessicareeves.net. Jessica was a 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 Doximity Op-Med Fellow.
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