Employees of two Wisconsin mental health clinics, both part of a national mental health nonprofit based in Oconomowoc, will vote next week on whether to join a union after what has become a highly contested campaign.
Almost two months after a four-day National Labor Relations Board hearing, the NLRB’s Minneapolis-based regional director this week ordered the elections at the clinics, operated by Rogers Behavioral Health in West Allis and Madison.
In the April 14 order, Regional Director Jennifer A. Hadsall rejected Rogers’ position that the election should include all 13 Wisconsin Rogers locations. Hadsall instead directed elections at the West Allis and Madison clinics, where a majority of employees had signed up with the National Union of Healthcare Workers, according to the union.
Union supporters at the Wisconsin clinics have said they decided to seek union representation in response to increased caseloads, changes in how employee productivity was measured and a reduction in individual time that therapists and other providers could spend with patients.
“All of the changes were about increasing the number of patients that were coming into the building,” Stephani Lohman, a nurse practitioner, told the Wisconsin Examiner earlier this year. “It did not seem to have a cohesive plan and no plan would be communicated.”
The NUHW is based in California. After employees at a Rogers clinic in Walnut Creek, California, organized in 2023 and elected the union to represent them in 2023, they negotiated their first contract in 2024.
Employees at two other California clinics and at a clinic in Philadelphia also joined the union, which those three clinics voluntarily recognized.
Union supporters at the West Allis and Madison clinics each sought voluntary recognition of the union after organizing over the past year.
In Wisconsin, however, Rogers declined voluntary recognition, and the employees then filed petitions with the NLRB for union elections.
Lohman worked at the West Allis clinic, known as Lincoln Center, and was among those active in organizing the union. She said she and two other employees were fired after submitting the petition to be recognized. The union has filed unfair labor practice charges claiming that the three firings were in retaliation for union organizing, which is against the law.
In response to an inquiry in March about the firings, Maureen Remmel, Rogers’ executive director for marketing and communications, told the Wisconsin Examiner via email, “We do not comment on confidential personnel matters and have acted in compliance with applicable law.”
Hadsall held a hearing that took place Feb. 23 through Feb. 27 at the NLRB’s office in Milwaukee, where Rogers’ lawyers argued for a bargaining unit of 1,383 employees encompassing all Rogers locations in Wisconsin — three hospitals in the Milwaukee area and 10 outpatient clinics around the state.
Rogers had “a heavy burden” to overcome the presumption that a single facility is an appropriate bargaining unit, Hadsall wrote in her order this week, and she found that management had failed to do so.
The evidence in how Rogers is organized and supervises its employees was insufficient to overcome a general presumption in U.S. labor law — that a union bargaining unit representing a single health care facility in a larger network or organization is considered appropriate.
Evidence in the case showed that neither of the two clinics had “lost their separate identity such that a single-facility union would be inappropriate,” Hadsall wrote.
Union elections for about 68 employees at the West Allis Lincoln Center clinic and about 35 at the Madison clinic are scheduled for Wednesday, April 22.
For employees at both clinics who have been seeking union representation, the decision was welcome news.
“I’m thrilled and beyond thrilled,” said Erin Quinlan, a behavioral health specialist at the Madison clinic. “It really just vindicated how firm our stance is and how confident we feel about organizing a union and doing so for the Madison clinic.”
Lohman said she and other West Allis employees who have been seeking union representation were pleased as well.
“I’ve just been feeling really overjoyed,” Lohman said Thursday. She and the other fired employees will be able to vote in the West Allis union election, she said.
Rogers Behavioral Health has announced the organization will appeal the order to the full NLRB in Washington, but that will not forestall next week’s voting.
“We are disappointed with the NLRB regional office’s decision to allow separate bargaining units given that Rogers Behavioral Health operates as one unified system across Wisconsin,” Rogers said in a statement, which Remmel delivered via email. The statement asserted that patients “can move seamlessly between different levels of care, supported by providers who collaborate across locations.”
In her order, however, Hadsall found that there was not sufficient evidence of “functional integration” across the system to overcome the presumption that a single facility is appropriate for a bargaining unit.
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