2,000 healthcare workers are protesting short-staffing, wage freezes, reductions in healthcare benefits, and Keck–USC’s union-busting tactics
LOS ANGELES — After four months of contract bargaining, nearly 2,000 healthcare workers are hosting an informational picket and rally outside Keck Hospital of USC on Wednesday, June 5. The picket will be at 1500 San Pablo Street from 6 a.m until 8:30 a.m. and 10: 30 a.m. until 3 p.m. with a rally from 11:45 a.m. to 12: 45 p.m.
The healthcare workers, who include licensed vocational nurses, nursing assistants, medical technicians, dietary staff, respiratory therapists, and housekeepers, are fighting for a contract that addresses Keck–USC’s chronic understaffing, provides affordable health care and fair wage increases for workers, and puts a stop to Keck–USC’s union-busting tactics.
Instead of addressing the factors that contribute to unsafe staffing levels at Keck-USC facilities, management is seeking to freeze wages, cut worker healthcare benefits, secure the right to subcontract union jobs, and eliminate job protections for workers if there is a change in ownership.
“USC is proposing a wage freeze and the removal of the family HMO plan that so many of us rely on,” said David Zavala, a Patient Care Technician at Keck Hospital. “We are already so short-staffed that more than 140 patient care technicians wrote a letter to management about how patient care is suffering. With these cuts recruitment and retention will suffer even more.”
In the past several months, workers have faced union-busting activities including attempts by management to limit their ability to engage in protected union activity, like meeting with their union organizers, and a proposed silencing clause that would prohibit workers from speaking publicly about critical patient care issues plaguing the Keck–USC health system.
“USC’s efforts to limit our ability to meet with our union reps and to speak publicly about our patient care concerns feels like union busting,” said Noemi Aguirre, a Respiratory Therapist at Keck Hospital. “But it’s not surprising considering that USC’s lead negotiator works for the Morgan Lewis Law Firm, the same law firm Amazon hired to bust its workers’ union.”
WHO/WHAT:
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Healthcare workers at Keck–Medicine of USC and USC Norris Cancer Hospital
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Picket lines with workers, marching, chanting and holding picket signs
WHERE/WHEN
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Wednesday June 5, 2024
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6 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. and from 10:30 a.m to 3:00 p.m. with a rally from 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. at Keck Hospital of USC, 1500 San Pablo St., Los Angeles
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The National Union of Healthcare Workers is democratic, member-led union that represents 19,000 healthcare workers in California and Hawai’i.
