Thundermist Workers United
For Thundermist Nurses, Medical Assistants & Patient Service Reps
A union would give us a stronger voice in decisions about our pay, benefits, staffing, schedules, and working conditions.
Our union is an organization of workers coming together to use our collective power to hold Thundermist accountable to what we — and our patients — need and deserve.
Why now
We've lost pay, benefits, and good people for three years running.
Thundermist isn't the place it used to be to work. Most of us have felt it — in a paycheck that buys less than it used to, in how many people we're covering for on an ordinary day, in a schedule we had to rearrange our lives around.
The RIF (Reduction In Force). We lost 3% of our pay, and with it our bonuses, stipends, shift and training differentials, and unmatched retirement contributions.
The years after. The 3% eventually came back. Nothing else did — no raise, no cost-of-living adjustment, and no market analysis to bring us in line with what other Rhode Island Federally Qualified Health Centers pay. The bonuses have never returned, and there's still no clear plan to bring them back.
Insurance kept climbing. This year our deductible more than doubled.
The work grew while the staff shrank. More piled on every year, with fewer people left to carry it.
The raise we did get came up short. It didn't cover the years without one, and it brought back none of what we lost. With inflation and the rising cost of living, most of us are worse off now than we were before the RIF.
Meanwhile the door never stops revolving. Good people leave, we train the ones who replace them, and then those people leave too. Better pay and benefits aren't only about what's in our checks — they're how you keep people worth keeping, and how you get them in the door at all.
It isn't only money. It's hard to give patients what they need when there aren't enough of us to do it — and that isn't something any one person fixes by working harder. A contract lets us bargain over staffing and workload, which is really bargaining over the care we're able to give. It's how people without much individual leverage get a voice that's hard to ignore — by having one together instead of one at a time.
This is happening right next to us. Last year every intern and resident at Rhode Island Hospital, Butler, Women & Infants, and Kent organized — and they're at the table now, bargaining their first contract. You may have seen them in the news. They're with SEIU too, in the division for residents and fellows.
The basics
Right now our pay, our PTO, our insurance, and our schedules are policy, not a promise anyone signed. Management writes the policy. Management can change the policy at any time. We only find out after.
A union replaces that with a contract — a legal document both sides sign. Once it's signed, management can't change our pay or benefits without sitting down with us first.
That's the whole thing.
"But who is the union?"
We are. You and your coworkers. When you hear "the union voted" or "the union decided," that means we voted. The workers at Thundermist would elect or select coworkers to serve on the bargaining team, identify bargaining priorities and everyone would vote on the proposed contract. SEIU 1199NE staff and attorneys would provide organizing, bargaining and legal support.
Who we'd be joining. 1199 SEIU New England. It's the largest clinic union in the state, with more than 500 clinic workers at community health centers like ours.
Questions & Answers
Next
Come together with your coworkers by signing a card! Then have one conversation. Just ask a coworker what would have to change for this job to work for them long-term. What do they want for themselves, their families, and their patients?
Questions