Court rejects imaging giant RadNet’s fight against union organization at handful of facilities
A District of Columbia court is ordering RadNet to bargain with a handful of unionized workers in California, rejecting the imaging giant’s court case against the labor campaign.
Three D.C. circuit judges unanimously reached their decision Friday, affirming a previous ruling from the National Labor Relations Board. The Los Angeles-based imaging operator must now work with organizers at six centers, after the court tossed numerous challenges from RadNet, Law360 reported April 2.
Through a series of elections, 67 employees in Orange County formed a union to fight for better pay, “less oppressive workloads” and “respect from their bosses,” the group said at the time.
NLRB and the D.C. court have agreed that RadNet violated the National Labor Relations Act by refusing to meet with National Union of Healthcare Workers to negotiate contracts. The investor-owned company made several challenges, questioning the voting process and how the elections were handled. However, the court found no validity in such claims, the report noted.
NUHW workers—including imaging technologists and registered nurses—first voted to organize back in 2018, according to the union’s website. And the labor board made its previously ruling in August 2019, noting that RadNet “failed to raise any issues that were not, or could not have been, litigated in the underlying representation proceedings.”
Asked for comment on the ruling, Executive VP and Chief Financial Officer Mark Stolper offered the following: "RadNet’s policy has been, and it remains our belief, that it is in the best interest of our employees and RadNet to maintain and nurture a direct relationship," he told Radiology Business Monday. "On a few, rare occasions, when some employees have elected a bargaining representative, RadNet’s policy has been and remains that we will bargain in good faith with the elected representative in compliance with governing law. At present, RadNet does not have any collective bargaining agreements covering any of our employees.”
Read more on the court case from Law360 below (subscription required).
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.