Children’s Hospital Oakland strike to begin Wednesday, June 18 with multiple unions now participating
Caregivers will picket outside the Oakland hospital and Walnut Creek clinics demanding that UCSF abandon its plan to cancel union contracts and cut take-home pay for approximately 2,500 East Bay workers
“This level of union-busting is something I would have expected from Donald Trump, not the University of California.” — Karen Villanueva, acupuncturist at Children’s Hospital Oakland
OAKLAND — Healthcare workers at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland will begin an open-ended strike Wednesday to stop UCSF Health from illegally canceling their union contracts and cutting their take-home pay — a move that is already causing long-tenured caregivers to leave the hospital.
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. On average, NUHW members would lose about $10,000 in take home pay, as well as their seniority after being made direct UCSF Health employees. The transition, which UCSF is calling an “Integration Plan,” would go into effect on July 6.
Over the past week, registered nurses, represented by the California Nurses Association, have put in notice for a five-day sympathy strike starting Wednesday, and operating engineers, represented by IUOE, Local 39, have put in notice for an open-ended sympathy strike.
In anticipation of the strike, UCSF officials informed workers via email last week that they plan to close clinics in Walnut Creek, San Ramon and Brentwood and cancel all elective surgeries and non-urgent orthopedic appointments.
Last week, the Alameda Labor Council called on UCSF to abandon its “Integration Plan,” which would amount to tearing up the union contracts at Children’s Hospital Oakland and satellite clinics across the East Bay, while forcing most of the workers into UC unions, with a sharp decrease in take-home pay.
“We cannot and will not stand idly by while UCSF bulldozes collective bargaining agreements it negotiated in good faith,” the labor council’s Executive Secretary-Treasurer Keith D. Brown wrote in a letter to UCSF officials. “It stands to reason that eliminating these contracts will invite a calamity of problems they were intended to solve, while placing the care of our children at dire risk.”
WHO/WHAT: Children’s Hospital Oakland workers walking strike lines in Oakland and Walnut Creek.
WHEN/WHERE: (Strike begins 7 a.m. Wednesday, June 18)
Weekdays: 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., outside Children’s Hospital Oakland, 747 52nd St., Oakland and Children’s Hospital Oakland Outpatient Center, 2401 Shadelands Dr, Walnut Creek.
Saturdays: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. outside Children’s Hospital Oakland, 747 52nd St., Oakland and Children’s Hospital Oakland Outpatient Center, 2401 Shadelands Dr, Walnut Creek.
Sundays: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. outside Children’s Hospital Oakland, 747 52nd St., Oakland (No Walnut Creek picket line on Sundays)
Currently workers at Children’s Hospital Oakland and its East Bay satellite clinics are employed by the hospital, not by UCSF Health. However, under the “Integration Plan,” UCSF Health would effectively require Children’s Hospital Oakland to terminate employees at the hospital and satellite clinics and rehire them as direct UCSF employees to do the same work at the same facilities for significantly less take-home pay.
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. Dozens of workers, whose jobs are not represented by UC unions, would lose union representation altogether.
“If UCSF gets its way, I’ll have no union and no workplace rights,” said Karen Villanueva, an acupuncturist at the hospital, who would become an at-will employee under UCSF’s “integration plan.” “This level of union-busting is something I would have expected from Donald Trump, not the University of California.”
NUHW members at Children’s Hospital Oakland have spoken out about UCSF keeping hundreds of caregiver jobs vacant in the East Bay while moving services that have been available for generations at the Oakland hospital to UCSF’s children’s hospital in San Francisco.
The transition threatens to further restrict pediatric services in the East Bay, as workers consider leaving or retiring rather than starting over as UCSF employees with less pay, no seniority and a completely different pension plan. East Bay workers could also be assigned to work in San Francisco, if the “integration” takes place.
“Cancelling our contracts, cutting our pay and assigning us to San Francisco won’t improve pediatric care,” said Maria Garcia, a preauthorization specialist at the hospital. “It will push out experienced caregivers in the East Bay, and leave Oakland kids with an understaffed hospital that has fewer services closer to home.”
Integration Plan is not a merger
Children’s Hospital Oakland affiliated with UCSF Health in 2014, but the hospital remains a private nonprofit separate from the university. UCSF’s “Integration Plan” is not a merger. The hospital, where the vast majority of patients qualify for Medi-Cal, would retain its ownership structure, license, and private nonprofit status, which allows it to collect substantial federal grants as a Federally Qualified Health Center.
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.
UCSF Health is taking money from its Oakland workers even though Alameda County taxpayers are providing hundreds of millions of dollars toward construction of a new hospital through Measure C, a 2020 county sales tax increase.
“The East Bay is where the kids are, and it’s where pediatric services and the caregivers belong,” said Fran Merriweather, a social worker at the hospital. “We take so much pride in caring for kids in our community and supporting their families. UCSF has never understood the needs of the kids we serve, and we can’t let them go forward with a plan that is designed to push out caregivers who have devoted their careers to making Children’s Hospital Oakland such a special place.”
NUHW has filed a grievance over the “integration plan” on grounds that it violates the prohibition against subcontracting in its union contracts. 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, but many will choose to individually honor the picket line.
All three labor agreements between NUHW and Children’s Hospital Oakland 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 Hawaii, including more than 1,300 workers at UCSF Children’s Hospital Oakland and satellite clinics.
