NUHW members at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland are fighting to keep their union and their strong contract as the university pursues an “integration plan” that would make them members of other unions and lower their take-home pay by an average of $7,000 per year.
On April 1, the workers, including more than 1,300 medical technicians, clerical staff, housekeepers, and professionals, rallied outside the Oakland hospital to demonstrate their determination to keep their contract and union.
Shortly after the rally, 98 percent of workers casting ballots in a third-party-administered election voted their support for staying in NUHW.
“This isn’t a plan to improve care; it’s wage theft,” said Angelica Leiva, a child life specialist at Children’s Hospital Oakland said before the rally. “UCSF is taking money from caregivers in the East Bay and keeping it for itself. We want to keep our union and keep our contract, and that should be our choice to make, not the University of California’s.”
The rally made local headlines with stories in Becker’s Hospital Review and KPFA.
UCSF affiliated with Children’s Hospital Oakland in 2014, running it as a private non-profit entity separate from UCSF Health. However, earlier this year, UCSF informed workers of an integration plan that would take effect in July.
The plan is not a merger. It would not change anything pertaining to the hospital’s ownership structure, funding, or license. The only tangible change would be to the employment status of its East Bay workers, allowing UCSF to significantly cut their take-home pay and keep that money for itself.
Under the plan, UCSF would effectively terminate its workers at Children’s Hospital Oakland and its satellite clinics across the East Bay and rehire them as direct UCSF employees. That move would terminate their union contracts and make them members of UCSF unions, whose contracts require workers to pay thousands of dollars more for their health and retirement benefits.
In addition to slashing take-home pay for workers, the integration plan would also allow UCSF to freely float workers between Children’s Hospital Oakland and the Mission Bay campus in San Francisco. While UCSF claims the move would give it added flexibility, workers are concerned that it would be a hardship to travel farther to work, leading to resignations that would ultimately leave Children’s Hospital Oakland with less available staff.
“The university’s phony integration plan is nothing more than a scheme to leave us with less take-home pay and leave our patients with fewer dedicated caregivers,” said Rosie Brooks, a telecommunications operator at the hospital. “UCSF has billions of dollars; it shouldn’t be taking money out of our pockets and the communities we serve.”
NUHW members at the hospital and satellite clinics have fought hard to safeguard community care since the 2014 affiliation with UCSF. After holding the largest strike in the hospital’s history in 2023, the workers secured better pay as well as provisions that make it harder for UCSF to shift services from the East Bay to San Francisco.
NUHW is pursuing legal action to stop UCSF’s integration plan, which amounts to an illegal subcontracting of workers under their current contracts. Workers are also considering a strike if UCSF moves forward with its integration plan.
“UCSF’s plan is bad for East Bay caregivers and kids,” said Cameron Lewis, a guest services ambassador at the hospital. “We’re going to reach out to everyone in our community about what’s at stake, and we’re going to stop it. Everyone should be able to choose their own union, and no worker should have their take home pay reduced so their employer can boost its profits.”
