Take action
Organize
Complaints and petitions push on institutions from the outside, one incident at a time. A union is the other lever — the one that lets people who work inside these places bargain for how the place actually runs, together, instead of each person absorbing the same failures alone.
This page doesn't ask you to sign up here. It points you to the real unions already organizing in Pennsylvania healthcare, so you can talk to actual organizers who know your specific workplace and job classification — that matters more than anything a website can tell you.
Know your rights first
Under the National Labor Relations Act, workers can discuss wages and working conditions with coworkers, and organize or join a union, without fear of retaliation. It's illegal for an employer to fire, discipline, cut hours, or otherwise punish someone for that. If it happens anyway, you can file an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board.
One important wrinkle if you're a self-directed/consumer-directed care worker paid through Medicaid (like a personal care attendant paid through an FEA such as Tempus): a 2014 Supreme Court decision, Harris v. Quinn, means you can't be required to pay union fees you don't agree to, since your legal status is closer to a "quasi-public employee" than a standard private-sector one. That's about mandatory fees, not about your right to organize or join voluntarily — but the exact rules for your specific program are genuinely worth confirming with an organizer directly rather than assuming from a general description like this one.
Worth knowing: in Massachusetts, where Tempus Unlimited is headquartered, personal care attendants paid through Tempus are unionized — represented by 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East through a state-created bargaining council — and it's part of why Massachusetts has some of the highest PCA wages in the country. Pennsylvania doesn't have that structure yet. That's not nothing: it means this has already worked with this exact company, just not here yet.
Home care / self-directed care (personal care attendants, Medicaid-funded)
Organizes home and community-based care workers, including self-directed/consumer-directed care.
Hospital nurses and allied professionals
~11,000 members, hospital-focused, helps staff form new bargaining units from scratch.
Also organizes nurses and technical/professional staff in hospitals statewide.
Nursing homes / long-term care facilities
Primarily Western and Central PA nursing homes.
Primarily Philadelphia-area healthcare and nursing home workers.
Tempus Unlimited's own office/enrollment staff (not the care workers paid through them — the company's own employees, like enrollment specialists and customer service)
NLRB records (case 01-CA-203682 and 01-CB-203686, filed 2017) show a prior union relationship between 1199SEIU and Tempus Unlimited, Inc. in Massachusetts, where Tempus is headquartered. Whether that still covers Pennsylvania operations today isn’t something a records search can confirm — worth asking them directly.
General-purpose union for office, insurance, and administrative workers across PA/NY/NJ/CT — a fallback if 1199SEIU doesn’t currently cover Tempus’s PA staff.
Insurance company workers generally (claims, customer service, administrative)
The main union historically organizing insurance-industry office and claims workers. Worth knowing: insurance is one of the least unionized industries in the country, so this is often a longer, from-scratch organizing effort rather than joining an existing shop.
Broader public-sector / general
Represents many public-sector workers, including some healthcare settings.
One practical note: when you're first reaching out to an organizer, use a personal phone/email, not a work account or work device — same general caution as anything else on this site.