FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
June 26, 2025
OAKLAND, CA – On Tuesday, June 24, 2025, frontline dialysis caregivers at U.S. Renal Care and Satellite Healthcare sent a letter to Bain Capital, urging the private investment firm to ensure its companies follow the values outlined in Bain’s 2024 Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Report. These values call on businesses to treat workers with fairness and respect, support labor relations, and promote health, safety and employee engagement.
Since U.S. Renal Care, a Bain-owned company, took over administrative control of Satellite Healthcare in 2023, caregivers have faced cuts to retirement benefits and changes to pensions. They also continue to experience resistance to their efforts to unionize. More than 30 months after the group voted to join SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), workers at both companies remain without a contract.
Dialysis caregivers provide life-saving care every day and are among the lowest-paid in healthcare. They are calling on Bain Capital to hold U.S. Renal Care and Satellite Healthcare accountable to the values in the ESG Report so caregivers can provide the best care possible from a place of integrity, fairness and respect.
Workers are asking Bain Capital to urge management to respect their right to organize and to bargain in good faith. They are demanding a fair contract at all union-represented locations that includes fair wages, safe staffing levels, strong retirement benefits and respect.
Frontline healthcare workers’ efforts to unionize and settle a contract are aimed at addressing chronic staffing shortages, ending union-busting tactics, and stopping retaliation against workers who speak out to protect patients and workers.
Read the full letter below:
Mr. Gordon & Mr. Radakovich,
Bain Capital’s 2024 Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Report lays out clear values of leading by example, empowering businesses to treat employees with fairness and respect, maintaining labor relations, and promoting employee health, safety, well-being, and engagement.
However, healthcare workers at both US Renal Care and Satellite Healthcare are dealing with a daily work environment in which we do not experience the high integrity dedication to fairness and respect for workers that Bain claims to support.
In the time since Satellite Health became administered by Bain-owned US Renal Care, employees have discovered sudden changes to their retirement benefits, including reductions in retirement benefit packages and modifications to pension plans affecting long-term employees. We provide life-saving care to our patients every day, and are some of the lowest-compensated workers in healthcare. We have dedicated our careers to patient care, and deserve to keep a fair retirement at the end of our years of service.
Moreover, when attempting to use our legal collective bargaining right to address these and other issues that impact employee safety and well-being, we have faced opposition from management instead of engagement. It is unconscionable that over 30 months after workers first voted to unionize with SEIU-UHW, there is still no collective bargaining agreement in place.
We know that the best way to support a mission-driven workplace like our clinics is for labor and management to work in partnership to address issues and create a fair workplace. We ask that US Renal Care and Satellite Healthcare join us in building an environment and culture that promotes employee safety, well-being, and engagement.
As owners of US Renal Care, with administrative control of Satellite Healthcare, Bain Capital has the ability through active governance and stewardship to help hold these companies accountable for upholding Bain’s ESG Report values.
We are ready to work with our employers to ensure that we can provide the best dialysis care to our patients, in the most effective way, from a place of high integrity, respect, and fairness.
We ask that you urge the management of these companies to respect workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively, and urge them to settle a fair contract expeditiously at all union-represented locations that reflects fair wages and retirement benefits, safe staffing levels, and respect for workers’ voices on the job.
Sincerely,
Workers at US Renal Care & Satellite Healthcare
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MEDIA CONTACT:
mediarelations@seiu-uhw.org
SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) is a healthcare justice union of more than 120,000 healthcare workers, patients, and healthcare activists united to ensure affordable, accessible, high-quality care for all Californians provided by valued and respected healthcare workers. Learn more at www.seiu-uhw.org.