Local 5147 Insurance Update, December 1 , 2025

As the holiday season begins, let’s remember the true reason we work so hard: to provide for ourselves and our families. Our labor sustains this workplace, and we deserve stability, respect, and the benefits we negotiated. Your union leadership has critical updates that require your immediate solidarity and action.

The question on everyone’s mind—our health insurance—has reached a critical point.

Prior to the holiday, your union leadership met with hospital administration regarding our insurance benefits for the new year. Despite our binding contract, the administration is requesting to open it up to negotiate a new insurance plan. One that will no doubt raise our members’ costs. This is unacceptable. In a time of rising costs for everything from groceries to rent, we refuse to let their greed trickle down to us, the hardworking members of our union.

We are actively working to secure the fair, contracted rates you deserve. We strongly advise all members to hold off on signing up for any medical plan until we force the administration to honor their word. Your collective patience is a powerful tool in this fight. We are mobilizing our resources to make this right. Your voice and your action will be the deciding factor.

The Fight for Our Union Jobs: Stop the Outsourcing!

This fight is about more than just insurance rates; it’s about the very future of our jobs and the strength of our union.

Recently, our former HRH lab members were moved to Bayonne under the false promise of “consolidation.” Now, we have learned the administration is attempting a blatant act of union busting: trying to close the Bayonne lab and outsource our work to a third party.

This is a direct violation of our contract and a direct threat to every one of us! If they succeed in outsourcing the lab, they will target your job next. An attack on one union member is an attack on all of us.

We are calling on every single member to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our Bayonne lab brothers and sisters.

We must send an unmistakable, unified message to administration: We will not tolerate the outsourcing of our positions, the erosion of our contracts, or the destruction of good union jobs.

The good fight for unions is never truly won—it is continuously defended with all our resources. Your solidarity is the only power they respect. By holding the line on signing up for insurance and by demanding justice for the Bayonne lab, we prove that HPAE is united and standing strong across facilities.

Thank you for your unwavering commitment and the essential work you do.

In absolute and enduring solidarity,

HPAE local 5147 LEB