Skip to main content
Laboratory workers who run blood, tissue, stool and toxicology tests for untold numbers of patients in Oregon and Southwest Washington have reached a first contract agreement with the company Labcorp, a significant victory in a yearslong labor organizing effort.
The nearly 500 workers—ranging from lab technicians to phlebotomists—are represented by the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals. They work at an array of labs owned or operated by Labcorp in Oregon and Southwest Washington, including at numerous Legacy Health Hospitals, a central lab in the Lloyd District, and another one on Northeast Halsey Street near the campus of Providence Portland Medical Center.
The union organized these workers after North Carolina-based Labcorp made major inroads in the Portland metro area laboratory space.
In May 2023, the for-profit company announced that it had bought part of Providence Oregon’s laboratory business. A few months later, it said it was extending further into the Portland market, purchasing lab facilities and equipment from Legacy Health, and taking over management of the health system’s inpatient labs too.
The companies emphasized that the transition would be seamless and the move would bring expanded offerings to Oregon.
Some were skeptical. In May 2024, more than 400 workers at various Legacy Health locations voted to unionize. The arrival of Labcorp was the “match that lit the fire,” says Anna Park, a member of the union bargaining team.
Indeed, the Labcorp takeover did not begin smoothly. As WW reported in summer 2024, doctors and patients complained of long lines at testing centers, and test results that arrived late or with errors.
Labcorp responded at the time that it was making “significant progress” addressing the problems and hiring more staff, and that “wait times and turnaround times have substantially improved.”
The company was also downsizing. By September 2024, Labcorp said it would lay off staff at Legacy’s Holladay Park laboratory, moving much of its testing to labs elsewhere. Park says dozens of people lost their jobs.
A few months later in January 2025, more than 100 workers at the Providence lab on Halsey Street announced their intention to unionize.
The ensuing negotiations included numerous bargaining units from both the Legacy and Providence facilities, according to Park, although workers will have to ratify separate contracts.
According to the union, the agreement includes a 9% average wage increase, with some workers seeing wage raises as high as 30%, among various other protections.
Unions are very rare at Labcorp, a company of about 70,000 employees that in the latest year on record earned just under $1 billion in profit. In a recent regulatory filing, the company said 2.5% of its workforce was represented by a collective bargaining agreement.
Labcorp did not respond to questions for this story.
