Caregivers will exit the Oakland hospital at 7 a.m. and walk picket lines, demanding that UCSF abandon its plan to cancel union contracts and cut take-home pay for approximately 2,500 East Bay workers
UCSF’s “integration plan” threatens to further reduce services at the Oakland hospital as long-tenured workers consider leaving or retiring rather than starting over as UCSF employees with less take-home pay, no seniority, and the potential to be assigned to work in San Francisco
OAKLAND — Healthcare workers will stream out of UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland at 7 a.m. today to begin an open-ended strike aimed at stopping 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 understaffed 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. Registered nurses at the hospital, represented by the California Nurses Association, and operating engineers, represented by IUOE, Local 39, would also lose their union contracts and are holding sympathy strikes starting today.
On average, NUHW members, who currently are employees of Children’s Hospital Oakland, 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.
“We’re determined to stop UCSF from canceling our contracts, because it would make it harder for us to provide for our families and advocate for the East Bay kids we serve,” said Marques Williams, a pharmacy tech at the hospital. “UCSF has never prioritized keeping care in Oakland, and we’ll lose more services and workers, if we don’t stop the university from busting our union and taking money out of our pockets.”
In anticipation of the strike, UCSF officials informed workers via email that they plan to close clinics in Walnut Creek, San Ramon and Brentwood and cancel all elective surgeries and non-urgent orthopedic appointments.
WHO/WHAT: Children’s Hospital Oakland workers walking strike lines in Oakland. Strikers will be available for interviews starting at 6:45 a.m.
WHEN/WHERE:
Weekdays: 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. starting today, June 18, outside Children’s Hospital Oakland, 747 52nd St., Oakland.
Weekends: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. outside Children’s Hospital Oakland, 747 52nd St., Oakland.
NOTE: Because UCSF has closed services at the Walnut Creek clinic, the picket line originally scheduled for Walnut Creek has been cancelled.
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.
The transition threatens to further reduce services at the Oakland hospital as workers consider leaving or retiring rather than starting over as UCSF employees with less take-home pay, no seniority and the potential of being assigned to work at a UCSF hospital in San Francisco.
“This is a cynical attempt by UCSF to push out caregivers, who have served and advocated for East Bay kids for generations,” said Griselda Chavez, an infant development specialist. “UCSF wants cheaper, less experienced workers, and it wants to be able to move them across the Bay, so they can’t advocate for Oakland families.”
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.
All three labor agreements between NUHW and Children’s Hospital Oakland include 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.
Integration Plan is not a merger
Children’s Hospital Oakland affiliated with UCSF Health in 2014, with the hospital remaining 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 funding, 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.
“UCSF won’t improve care for Oakland kids by violating our rights and cutting our take-home pay,” said Cameron Lewis, a patient ambassador at the hospital. “It’s going to force out really good workers and make it harder for UCSF to provide services that our families in Oakland have counted on for generations.”
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.
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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.
