7 Aug 20th - Aug 26th, 2026 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | Sure enough, management axed her. But not outright. A company cannot legally fire an employee for filing an unfair labor practice charge, and retaliating against a worker is illegal. Instead, the company barred her from the building while main- taining her pay and insurance until her 90 days were up in early August. Lea suspects that her affiliation with UAPD set Banner Health off. Before she filed her labor complaint, Lea said, the company didn’t know something big was happening behind the scenes: Fed up with management, Banner Health’s doctors were organizing a potential union. ‘It’s all profit-driven’ If they succeed, Banner’s physicians will have formed Arizona’s only physicians’ union — and at the state’s largest private employer, no less. Working with UAPD, physicians and dentists nationwide have formed more than 30 bargaining units across more than 100 healthcare settings. UAPD represents more than 7,000 physi- cians across the country. Six UAPD bargaining units in California have formed through the state’s university system, among county and nonprofit employees and an anesthesiologists’ corporation. Two UAPD bargaining units are in New Mexico: La Familia Health and Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services. No other physicians are organized in a Banner Health setting. In 2024, the Phoenix-based Banner Health brought in a revenue of $10.8 billion, with $9.31 billion in expenses across opera- tions in six states. It counts more than 30 physician clinics across the Valley, including in Gilbert, Mesa, Chandler, Queen Creek, Maricopa, Sun City, Buckeye and Peoria. Nearly 270 Banner physicians and other practitioners are eligible to join and vote in the formation of the union: nurse practitio- ners, physician assistants, family medicine physicians, internal medicine physicians and pediatricians. The doctors say they’re organizing for better pay and to address a host of issues with their hospitals. They say administra- tors have placed profit above patient care and inundated doctors with administrative duties that force them to work long hours away from their patients. The doctors feel micromanaged, exhausted and disrespected. Hospital Drama Banner Health doctors are trying to form a labor union. BY MORGAN FISCHER D r. Syerra Lea swung open the door of her office at Banner’s Gilbert Health Center. Inside, she found the clinic’s physi- cian executive and human relations director waiting for her. “Have a seat,” one of the managers said. They’d received Lea’s 90-day notice. Leadership was ending her clinical duties that Friday morning, a full 86 days before her set final day. Lea had worked as a family care physi- cian at the company’s Gilbert location for 12 years. And just like that, Banner Health’s managers forced her to turn over her laptop and badge and had her escorted out of the building. Leadership barred her from finishing patient workups and following up on diagnoses. Someone would collect the rest of her things. She could pick them up another day. “I didn’t say goodbye to my patients,” Lea said through tears in an interview with Phoenix New Times. “Essentially, they said, ‘OK, should she continue to see patients? Or should we send her home for fear that she’ll spread the union?’ And they chose to send me home.” A week prior, Lea filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board against her employer, alleging that Banner Health retaliated against her for bringing up a scheduling conflict in a clinic group chat — a seemingly trivial matter that managers escalated. To represent her in the complaint, she enlisted an attorney with the Union for American Physicians and Dentists. She suspected Banner might see the complaint and fire her. So as she started her job hunt, she gave Banner her 90-day notice, a standard in the industry. >> p 8 Banner University Medical Center in downtown Phoenix. (Elizabeth Whitman) | NEWS |
