Health Care

Few groups of workers understand the need for high-quality, high-access health care better than coal miners and their families. The very nature of the work miners perform causes physical injuries that can be both long term and debilitating.

That's why, beginning in the 1950's, the UMWA established a series of hospitals in the coalfields to provide health care to coal miners and their families. The union also organized the workers in those hospitals, from nurses to food service workers to maintenance employees. Though the UMWA hospitals are long gone, the union's representation of health care workers lives on.

Today, the UMWA represents RNs, LPNs, CNAs, food service employees, and service and maintenance workers in hospitals and nursing homes from Virginia to Colorado, from Pennsylvania to Alabama. We understand and support the critical need to maintain high staffing levels so that quality patient care does not suffer, and know that the best way to maintain staffing levels is for health care workers to receive the fair pay and benefits they've earned.