UNAP

06/03/2025

Last night, more than 500 nurses and health professionals showed up in force to express their displeasure with Brown University Health’s latest contract offers.

The UNAP and Brown University Health management have been bargaining for a contract for months with nurses and healthcare workers at Rhode Island Hospital. Brown University Health has failed to provide sufficient safety protections for nurses and healthcare workers, or offer a contract that provides a safe, affordable health insurance plan or family-sustaining wages. Management's current proposal would shift roughly $1 million dollars onto the backs of nurses and healthcare workers through increased health insurance costs. This is a tiny amount of money for Brown University Health, but a massive amount of money for these healthcare workers. This cost shift is more than $1,000 per member that has insurance, and could cost any given UNAP member at Rhode Island Hospital thousands of additional dollars each year.

With Rhode Island facing a significant nursing shortage, management's proposals will negatively impact recruitment and retention and further exacerbate staffing issues at Rhode Island Hospital – potentially impacting patient care.

The UNAP is calling on Brown University Health to get their priorities straight – and to start putting patient care first, and respecting the nurses and healthcare professionals who deliver that care. The union will continue running an open-ended campaign to raise awareness about the hypocrisy of Brown Health CEO John Fernandez and Brown University President Christina Paxson. Learn more about the campaign at www.respectRIpatients.com.

06/01/2025

The plan includes legislation, litigation, research, and strategic partnerships aimed at delivering both immediate relief and long-term reform.

05/30/2025

UNAP Local 5098, representing the nurses and healthcare workers at Rhode Island Hospital, held an informational demonstration outside of the Rhode Map Live - Rhode Island’s Healthcare Crisis event. Check out the news story that ran on WPRI TV by clicking the link.

The UNAP and Brown University Health management have been bargaining for contracts with nurses and healthcare workers at Rhode Island Hospital, but Brown University Health has failed to provide safety protections for nurses and healthcare workers, or offer a contract that provides safe staffing levels, a safe, affordable health insurance plan, or family-sustaining wages.

Their offer will only serve to harm recruitment and retention efforts and exacerbate staffing issues in the midst of a statewide nursing shortage.

The UNAP is calling on Brown University Health to stop belittling – and start properly investing in – the patients and healthcare workers at Rhode Island Hospital.

The plan includes legislation, litigation, research, and strategic partnerships aimed at delivering both immediate relief and long-term reform.

05/22/2025

Have you seen our new billboard on Route 195 West?

You can also check out our new radio ad, running on top stations across Rhode Island, and make your voice heard at www.respectRIpatients.com.

05/22/2025

When the leaders of Brown University and Lifespan announced their new affiliation, creating Brown University Health, they offered enthusiastic support for their employees. Brown University Health CEO John Fernandez and Brown University President Christina Paxson spoke of investing in the workforce and generating high-paying jobs opportunities, and implied that benefits would stay the same for current employees after the affiliation. They spoke about improving patient care at their hospitals.

Yet not even a year later, they have already gone back on their word during contract negotiations with the nurses and healthcare workers at Rhode Island Hospital, proposing a drastic reduction in employee benefits and below-market wages. Management has also resisted proposals designed to improve staffing and patient outcomes. With the amount of money Brown University and Brown University Health have, this treatment of patients and healthcare workers is unnecessary and completely unacceptable.

We are calling on them to stop belittling the patients and healthcare workers at Rhode Island Hospital, and start treating them with the respect and dignity they deserve. It's time to settle a fair contract.

Visit respectRIpatients.com to take action.

03/04/2024

We are calling on the R.I. Department of Health and the Attorney General to reject Centurion Foundation's application to buy CharterCARE hospitals and healthcare facilities. Their business model is not even close to credible or viable, starting with the fact that they have never owned or operated a hospital or healthcare facility. But that's not all.

-Centurion knows that CharterCARE (Roger Williams Medical Center, Fatima Hospital and Prospect Home Health and Hospice) continues to lose money, which is unsustainable. But Centurion is not going to make any financial commitments to CharterCARE facilities.

-Centurion is not putting up any of their own money in this sale. Instead, they expect these community hospitals and healthcare facilities to borrow up to $133 million to stay afloat. Centurion is not on the hook to pay this money back. CharterCARE facilities will have to pay it back with money they don’t have.

-According to Centurion, these community hospitals and healthcare facilities are supposed to survive by finding cost-savings and new revenue, which they haven’t been able to do for decades now.

-At the same time that Centurion refuses to invest any money in these healthcare facilities, they insist on making CharterCARE’s hospitals and facilities pay them numerous fees and charges. Worse, Centurion refuses to tell us what the fees and charges are for, or how much they will be.

Learn more about why this application must be rejected at

A message from the United Nurses and Health Professionals to the Rhode Island Department of Health and Attorney General: Centurion Foundation’s application to buy CharterCARE Fatima Hospital, Roger Williams Medical Center, and Prospect Home Health and Hospice have served Rhode Island patients and ...

11/08/2022

11/07/2022

UNAP Locals Negotiating Contracts
We are the service workers at Fatima Hospital – United Nurses & Allied Professionals, Local 5110.
We are the home health workers at Prospect CharterCARE Home Health & Hospice – United Nurses & Allied Professionals, Local 5111.
We are the RNs at Roger Williams Medical Center – United Nurses & Allied Professionals, Local 5092.
And we’ve had enough.
We’ve been negotiating with Prospect for months and still don’t have contracts.

05/12/2022

UNAP members march to Congress during the National Nurses March today in Washington DC. It’s time for the voices of nurses and healthcare workers to be heard!

05/12/2022

Today, UNAP members joined in solidarity with other nurses and healthcare professionals from across the country for the National Nurses March in Washington D.C. We marched to Congress to demand real change in the healthcare field – fair wages and benefits, safe staffing patient ratios, and protections against workplace violence. And we want to change the culture of the biases and discriminations we see in the nursing profession. It's time for the voices of healthcare workers to be heard!

03/25/2022

“Put simply, Landmark management, led by the out of state Prime Healthcare, has forgotten about the nurses and healthcare professionals who led Landmark Medical Center through the worst of the pandemic,” stated UNAP Local 5067 President Brenda Schobel.

“We are still in the throes of the pandemic, and they’ve already forgotten the sacrifices we made for the hospital and our patients, instead offering us a contract that increases our health insurance costs and pays us far below fair market rates. This contract proposal is a slap in the face to us and the work we do, and it will create an unsafe environment for patients in the hospital.”

“While top executives rake in big money and Prime takes in massive management fees, they’re simultaneously refusing to provide a competitive wage and benefit package, which will result in a shortage of caregivers, creating dangerous conditions, and putting Landmark patients at risk. They’re more interested in lining their own pockets than ensuring the long-term stability of this community hospital that Woonsocket and other Blackstone Valley residents depend on.”

WOONSOCKET, R.I. (WLNE)- Dozens of healthcare workers chanted “Be fair to those who care” while taking part of a informational picket outside Landmark Medical Center on Thursday. The picket was held by United Nurses and Allied Professionals Local (UNAP) Local 5067 who represent the healthcare wo...