December 15, 2020
A group of nurses and other health care workers at UCHealth announced Tuesday that they are forming a union aimed at addressing longstanding concerns about staffing, workplace safety and inadequate patient care across Colorado's largest hospital system.
Subscribe
UCHealth Workers United says it will organize staff members across all job titles and locations in the UCHealth system, which employs more than 24,000 people at seven major hospitals and dozens of clinics across the state. UCHWU is organizing under Communications Workers of America Local 7799.
In a press release, the group said that its members, including many UCHealth nurses, have long feared that low staffing levels and high turnover rates were putting the quality of patient care within the hospital system at risk. The coronavirus pandemic has only strained Colorado hospital capacity further and exacerbated those concerns, a situation that the group described as a "crisis within a crisis."