Article
What happened
The Union of American Physicians and Dentists filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to represent clinicians who practice at 31 Banner clinic locations around Phoenix. According to the union, the group cares for more than 500,000 patients a year. A union spokesperson said the board was expected to schedule an election in July.
The organizers’ stated concerns are patient panel sizes, staffing levels and scheduling practices. They want collective bargaining to produce enforceable protections on staffing and workload. Banner has said it believes direct collaboration between clinicians and leadership, without a third party, works best, and it has encouraged medical group members to vote no.
Why this matters beyond Phoenix
Employed physicians and advanced practice clinicians have historically been slow to unionize. That is changing as more clinicians work for large systems and feel they have less say over schedules, support staff and patient volume. Ambulatory practices are especially exposed because productivity targets and panel growth are often the main levers for improving medical group margins.
The cost of getting labor relations wrong is now well documented. Kaiser Permanente reported this month that it spent more than $1 billion on temporary staffing and related costs to keep facilities running during a nurse and health professional strike earlier this year.
What medical group leaders can do now
- Publish the workload math. Share how panel targets, visit templates and support staff ratios are set, and invite clinicians to challenge the assumptions.
- Measure inbox and after-hours work. Messaging and documentation outside clinic hours drive burnout as much as visit counts. Track them by clinician and act on outliers.
- Give clinicians real decision rights. Advisory councils without authority over schedules or staffing will not change sentiment.
- Train managers on labor law. Leaders should understand what they can and cannot say during an organizing campaign.
- Check compensation design. Pay models that reward volume alone can push clinicians toward collective action.
Whatever the outcome of the Banner vote, the petition is a signal that panel size and workload have become core retention issues for employed clinicians.
Archive entry for Jun 25, 2026, added Nov. 11, 2026.