A healthcare company closed down the only clinic in town that takes Medicaid—and workers say it’s union busting.
Shannon Gooden is a dental receptionist with River Hills Community Health Clinic in Centerville. She and 20 other workers there are still reeling after they were told River Hills was closing their clinic on July 31.
“I believe it was solely because of the union,” Gooden told me this week. “Because it’s just all so fishy.”
Rural health clinics are having a tough time keeping their doors open in Iowa, thanks to cuts to Medicaid in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.
https://iowastartingline.com/news/labor/how-river-hills-health-care-workers-won-their-union-in-iowa/But Gooden says the timing is suspect: Ninety percent of workers signed cards indicating their support to unionize with River Hills United, just after their colleagues up the road in Ottumwa successfully unionized. And the day they were told the closure was happening was the same day of River Hills’ deadline to file their response to the union election.
“Why all of a sudden out of the blue, when you have a deadline to notify the National Labor Board that day at noon, have an emergency board meeting and decide to close us?” she asked.
‘It was a shock’
Gooden has worked in reception for the Centerville office for nearly four years, and said she loves her job and helping patients.
Workers wanted to join their Ottumwa colleagues in the union because they wanted better conditions for themselves and patients.
“Our nurses are wanting to stand up for our patients,” Gooden said. “ How can we give decent care when you’re wanting us to herd the patients in like animals? When there’s conditions that are unsafe and stuff like that, they won’t listen to them—and all’s they wanted to do was be heard.”
River Hills announced Centerville’s closure May 12, citing “financial and operational challenges,” the company told Ottumwa Radio.
“It was a shock,” Gooden said of the news. “We’re coming in, working, treating patients, but it’s tough knowing we have no place to go and that the main facility doesn’t care about us anymore. It’s frustrating.”
‘The patients are not happy’
River Hills Centerville is a federally qualified health center, which provides primary care services regardless of a patient’s ability to pay.
The next closest one is River Hills Ottumwa, a fifty (50) minute drive each way—and, Gooden says, already overloaded with patients from other rural areas that have lost their clinics.
“We’ve got patients that I don’t know what they’re gonna do,” she said. “ They’re just wondering, where are they gonna go? Who can we see? The patients are not happy.”
‘All the money … could have saved this clinic’
Less than two weeks before the announcement, workers had filed a petition to unionize with the NLRB, starting the process of voting on union representation.
In response, Teamsters Local 90 filed an unfair labor practice charge against River Hills on May 18, saying the closure was illegal on the grounds it was anti-union and designed to stop union organizing at other River Hills locations.
“We want the CEO gone. She is the root of all the problems,” Gooden said of River Hills’ CEO Joy Alexander. “When this was first filed, she’s like, ‘No, if you guys want a union, that’s fine. We’ll work with you.’ But then all the money that they have put into union busting to stop people from voting for the union could have saved this clinic.”
In addition to the lawsuit, workers held a rally this past Saturday, and have gotten over five hundred (500) signatures on a petition to keep the clinic open.
“This facility is so badly needed. We are the only facility in the area that takes Medicaid,” Gooden said. “ I’m gonna fight as hard as I can to keep this facility open, not just for myself and my teammates, [but] mainly for the patients, because it is going to devastate this area.”
