Caregivers at Sutter hospitals, and hospice and home health services throughout Northern California will walk picket lines to protest chronic understaffing and unmanageable workloads
More than 1,100 Sutter Health workers who serve patients at Sutter hospitals in San Francisco and Sacramento, and at Sutter home care and hospice services across Northern California, will hold an informational picket Saturday, April 11, to raise awareness about severe understaffing in Sutter services as they seek improvements through ongoing contract negotiations.
WHO/WHAT: An informational picket by Sutter Health workers, including nurses, nursing assistants, social workers, housekeepers, respiratory therapists, medical technicians, and patient care support specialists at Sutter CPMC Van Ness and Davies campuses, the Sutter Center for Psychiatry in Sacramento, and Sutter Care At Home hospice and home care services serving patients in San Francisco, Sacramento, Alameda, Contra Costa and San Mateo counties.
WHEN/WHERE: 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Saturday, April 11, outside Sutter California Pacific Medical Center, 1101 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco; and Sutter Center for Psychiatry, 7700 Folsom Blvd., Sacramento.
“We’re seeing patients suffer because we’re understaffed and stretched too thin to provide the level of care they need,” said Maricar Trinidad, a nursing assistant at California Pacific Medical Center. “It’s infuriating to see Sutter tout its profits and expand into other states when our patients here in Northern California are waiting longer for services because our caseloads are too high and our staffing levels are too low. For months, we’ve been making proposals in negotiations to address these issues, but Sutter management refuses to acknowledge that any problems exist.”
Sutter Health reported a $1.9 billion profit last year and is investing billions more into its new partnership with Allina Health in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Yet, in Northern California, caregivers represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers confront severe understaffing, increased caseloads, and an employer that has shown no interest in addressing the problems.
So far, at the bargaining tables for Sutter California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, Sutter Center for Psychiatry in Sacramento, and Sutter Care at Home hospice and rehabilitation services across Northern California, Sutter has rejected proposals aimed at:
- Requiring safe-staffing levels at its hospitals and appropriate staffing levels in its home and hospice services.
- Ensuring that caregivers aren’t so overloaded with patients that they can’t provide the level of care that patients need.
- Providing appropriate wage increases so Sutter can retain its caregivers and hire more of them.
Sutter paid CEO Warner Thomas $11.9 million in 2024, but it’s demanding that nearly half its workers accept annual raises below 3 percent — demands that would force more workers to leave Sutter and more patients to wait even longer for care.
“The issues we see are system-wide, and they affect patients relying on every type of service that Sutter provides,” said Stephanie Smith, a case manager registered nurse with Sutter Care at Home Sacramento Hospice. “We’re determined to advocate for our patients and to make Sutter use its resources to provide the best possible care.”
- Sutter Center for Psychiatry is a 73-bed acute psychiatric hospital in Sacramento, where nearly 170 NUHW members, including social workers, nurse practitioners, therapists, cooks, housekeepers, and patient care support specialists, serve patients. Between 2023 and 2025, workers filed 125 workplace-violence reports involving patients, including 51 incidents that resulted in worker injuries. In a union survey, nearly 63 percent of direct patient care providers reported inadequate staffing levels. Yet Sutter has refused proposals to increase staffing levels and is proposing annual raises of less than 2 percent. Their contract expired in January.
- Sutter California Pacific Medical Center: The contract for 628 workers, including nursing assistants, medical technicians, housekeepers, and respiratory therapists, expired in March. The workers make far less than their counterparts at San Francisco General Hospital and Kaiser Permanente, but Sutter is proposing to increase wages 6.5 percent over two years. Given the rising cost of living, this would exacerbate understaffing at facilities, as a union survey found that more than half of respondents said their department was inadequately staffed on a typical shift.
- Sutter Care at Home: The contract for more than 350 workers who provide home care and hospice services in six Northern California counties expired in January. Workers are seeking provisions to increase staffing and reduce caseloads as Sutter’s “productivity” requirements are forcing nurses, social workers, and occupational therapists to spend more time in their cars traveling to appointments and less time caring for individual patients. Sutter has rejected worker proposals to increase staffing and is offering annual raises of under 2 percent.
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The National Union of Healthcare Workers is a worker-led movement that represents 19,000 workers in California, Hawai’i, and Pennsylvania, including more than 1,100 workers at Sutter Health.
