Children’s Hospital Oakland workers to launch open-ended strike on June 18 to stop UCSF from canceling their union contracts and cutting their take-home pay
“There’s no difference between what Donald Trump is doing to federal workers and what the University of California is doing to healthcare workers in Oakland,” — Willie Williams, an orthopedic technician at the hospital.
OAKLAND — Healthcare workers at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland are preparing to launch an open-ended strike Wednesday, June 18, to stop UCSF Health from illegally canceling their union contracts — a move that would cost workers both their union and about $10,000 per year on average in take-home pay due primarily to increased costs for health and retirement benefits.
The strike is being launched by members of the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which represents 1,300 workers at the hospital, including the vast majority of caregivers who are not registered nurses.
Picket line details will be released the week of the strike.
UCSF Health is effectively requiring Children’s Hospital Oakland to terminate employees at the hospital and satellite clinics across the East Bay and rehire them as direct UCSF employees to do the same work at the same facilities for significantly less take-home pay. The transition, which UCSF is calling an “Integration Plan,” would go into effect on July 6.
Most employees at Children’s Hospital Oakland would be transferred into UC unions whose contracts leave workers with less take-home pay primarily because they are required to pay thousands of dollars more toward their health and retirement benefits. Similarly to President Trump’s actions against federal workers, dozens of workers at the Oakland hospital would lose union representation altogether and become at-will employees.
NUHW members at Children’s Hospital Oakland have spoken out for years about UCSF moving services to San Francisco. The transition threatens to sharply reduce the number of available caregivers at the Oakland hospital as workers consider leaving or retiring rather than starting over as UCSF employees with no seniority and a completely different pension plan.
“This is a naked money grab by the University of California against workers in Oakland that will result in less care and fewer caregivers for children in the East Bay,” said Jackki Patrick, a patient care assistant at the hospital. “UCSF is trying to push out as many experienced caregivers as it can by violating our rights and cutting our take-home pay, and we’re going to do everything in our power to stop them.”
Integration Plan is not a merger
UCSF affiliated with Children’s Hospital Oakland in 2014, running it as a private nonprofit hospital, separate from UCSF Health. This arrangement, which would not change under the “Integration Plan, allows the hospital to continue to qualify for substantial federal grants.
UCSF’s “Integration Plan” is not a merger. Children’s Hospital Oakland’s ownership structure, license, and private nonprofit status would remain unchanged. However, by canceling union contracts and forcing workers into UC Unions, UCSF would effectively be transferring about $20 million out of the pockets of its East Bay workforce into its own coffers.
“There’s no difference between what Donald Trump is doing to federal workers and what the University of California is doing to healthcare workers in Oakland,” said Willie Williams, an orthopedic technician at the hospital. “UCSF is violating our rights and behaving like it’s above the law. We have no choice but to take to the streets and defend our contracts and our rights as workers.”
NUHW has filed a grievance over the “integration plan” on grounds that it violates the prohibition against subcontracting in its union contracts with the hospital. However, Children’s Hospital Oakland has refused to select an arbitrator, forcing NUHW to file a lawsuit seeking to compel arbitration. A federal judge is scheduled to hear the complaint on June 26.
In an independently-conducted vote in April, 98 percent of NUHW members casting ballots stated their preference for remaining in their union.
Workers who authorized the strike include NUHW-represented nursing assistants, respiratory therapists, housekeepers, clerical workers, and medical technicians whose contracts expired in April, but remain in effect. NUHW-represented professional workers at the hospital, who include mental health therapists, speech therapists and occupational therapists, are unable to authorize a strike because their contract doesn’t expire until September.
All three labor agreements between NUHW and Children’s Hospital Oakland, which remain in effect even after the expiration date, secured better pay and included provisions that make it harder for UCSF to subcontract out jobs or shift services from the East Bay to San Francisco. Those protections would no longer be in place if UCSF is able to cancel the contracts.
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The National Union of Healthcare Workers is a member-led movement that represents 19,000 healthcare workers in California and Hawai’i, including more than 1,300 workers at UCSF Children’s Hospital Oakland and satellite clinics.
