Eighty-plus hour work weeks, no child care benefits or retirement plans and salaries that come out to below minimum wage are the conditions 831 University at Buffalo resident physicians say they’re working under, and they want things to change.

"These people are the first people you see when you're entering a hospital and it's usually at your worst moment. It's usually to seek help for health care for yourself and your family," said Fillmore District Councilmember Mitch Nowakowski. "It's critical that ... we fight for folks like this to be able to stay in our community."

Their union formed last year, and six months into negotiations, the Union of American Physicians and Dentists (UAPD) says they haven’t gotten anywhere.

They’re looking for movement on multiple fronts, including various benefits, meal stipends, affordable health care, safe parking conditions and clean call rooms. 

The biggest is pay.

"During contract negotiations over the last six months, we have asked for reasonable improvements to all of these issues to finally give these essential workers some dignity and to match the salary and benefits of regional residency programs. Inexplicably, these asks have been rejected by UB and their affiliates," said Cary Lane, a representative with UAPD. "This should sound the alarm to everyone in Western New York. This is now a community issue."

Union reps say UB resident physicians are the lowest paid in the entire state.

The residents on the front lines spoke out Wednesday, with many of them describing not being able to make ends meet. 

"While I do not regret my decision to stay in Buffalo for residency, I do say that we, on average, do not feel respected and it does make it more difficult to want to stay in a system that you do not feel respected. It is not good for Buffalo, for your entire training force of doctors to stand here and be advocating for ourselves," said Lauren Lucente, a third-year psychiatry resident. "We would not want to be up here unless we felt that it was needed. I mean, we're asking for basic things."

It’s frustrating to them, especially when other residents in similar cost-of-living cities or even smaller ones are making way more.

"I have a colleague who chose to be here to train as an adolescent psychiatrist. She moved here with her husband and she had a baby in October and she is now on a payment plan because she cannot afford to pay for the cost of delivery in Buffalo, so that's why I'm asking the community for help," said Amy Beattie, fourth-year resident with two kids, who’s been in Buffalo since 2011. "I want to convince my colleagues, I want to convince the doctors, to stay here in Buffalo and continue to take care of the community."

She says on top of $276,000 in student loans, she’s saddled with credit card debt and the interest that comes with it, but that’s the only way she’s making it day to day. 

"I'm losing 75% of my colleagues," she said. "You're taking us for all we're worth. And when we're left with nothing, when you can't establish family here, when you can't buy houses here [and] when you can't do anything but survive, as soon as it's done, you look for greener pastures because you simply can't afford to stay here.”

Union reps say they’re been negotiating with University Medical Resident Services, which employs the resident physicians. It’s not UB itself or the hospitals they’re at.

“We don't want their milk and cookies. We want fair pay. We want fair benefits. We want better working conditions. And we want respect,” said Robert Boreanaz, the UAPD lead negotiator.

"I'm hopeful that after this conversation that this week, during Resident Appreciation [Week], that we will show that appreciation by having a conversation with these folks," said University District Councilmember Rasheed Wyatt. "These are real people and we want them to stay in the city of Buffalo." 

Residents are frustrated with the process. They say when they ask one entity, they get pointed to the other one, and vice versa, so it’s a loop.

They’d like the hospital and UB to join them at the negotiation table.

The Jacobs School of Medicine released a statement, saying:

"The Jacobs School supports salary increases and improvements to the educational and working conditions for our medical residents, and we will continue to advocate for these shared objectives, just as we have effectively done over the past several years,” said Gregory S. Cherr, MD, senior associate dean for graduate medical education at the Jacobs School. 

“Although neither UB nor the Jacobs School are the legal entity responsible for negotiations with the medical residents, we remain hopeful that these negotiations will progress to ensure that our medical residents continue to benefit from a first-class learning environment and are compensated fairly and competitively. 

“As this situation resolves, we can assure our medical residents that the Jacobs School is committed to providing them with outstanding educational opportunities, training, and experiences. We also will continue to offer exceptional medical residency and fellowship programs that attract the most talented and humanistic medical residents nationwide to the Jacobs School and Western New York.”

As negotiations continue, union reps say any actions are on the table, including demonstrations, rallies and potential work stoppages.