Protecting care: Mass. Planned Parenthood employees vote overwhelmingly to unionize

MARLBOROUGH — With only one vote against in the initial tally, workers at Planned Parenthood clinics in Marlborough, Boston, Worcester and Springfield have voted overwhelmingly in favor of unionizing.

The Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts (PPLM) employees will join 1199SEIU, a health care union affiliated with the Service Employees International Union, which already represents nearly 1,000 Planned Parenthood workers throughout the U.S.

Previously:‘Giving care to caregivers’: Mass. Planned Parenthood employees look to unionize

Mail-in ballots were tallied Wednesday afternoon, with the National Labor Relations Board showing 92 votes in favor and 1 opposed, among 130 eligible voters.  

The vote comes less than two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that had, up to that point, maintained that the U.S. Constitution generally protects the freedom to choose an abortion.

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“This victory reinforces that there's a tremendous amount of power when workers come together," Cara Callahan, a continuity of care patient navigator at PPLM, said in a 1199 SEIU press release. "Unionizing has been a way for us to invest in each other and gain some control over what our workplace looks like, especially given the climate we are in.”

Callahan continued: “We want to live our shared values to provide care for ourselves and one another. This ensures we can center our patients and make sure they get the quality care they need and deserve.”

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In a statement to the Daily News, PPLM President and CEO Dr. Jennifer Childs-Roshak described Planned Parenthood staff as the “bedrock” of the organization’s sexual and reproductive health care in Massachusetts. 

“PPLM has a long history of working alongside labor justice partners, and we respect our employees’ decision,” she said. “After today's vote, we remain committed to making the best decisions possible for all of our employees, patients, and communities, and look forward to a productive collective bargaining process.”

Impacted workers include health care assistants, registered nurses, patient navigators, educators, tele-health workers, advanced practice clinicians and advocates in all four clinics, according to the 1199SEIU press release.

Marlishia Aho, 1199SEIU’s regional communications manager, told the Daily News that next steps include forming a bargaining committee and beginning the contract negotiation process with PPLM management.

Aho said this unionization is “part of a growing movement of health care workers who are on the frontlines of reproductive and gender-affirming care to really make improvements in the form (of), ‘How do we protect this care going forward?’” 

The victory “reinforces that, especially for the last 2½ years where health care workers have been hailed as heroes, this is how we honor our heroes,” she said. “We elevate their voice, take action to protect the care that they’ve been providing during some of the darkest times of our nation.”

Abby Patkin is a multimedia journalist for the Daily News. Follow Abby on Twitter @AMPatkin. She can be reached at apatkin@wickedlocal.com.