DAY 9: Children’s Hospital Oakland Strike
Striking hospital workers travel to San Francisco today for hearing on temporary injunction that would stop UCSF from canceling union contracts and pushing long-tenured caregivers out of Oakland
Dozens of striking UCSF Children’s Hospital Oakland workers will travel by bus to a courthouse in San Francisco where this afternoon a federal judge will hear a motion from the National Union of Healthcare Workers seeking a temporary injunction to stop UCSF’s “integration plan” from going into effect on July 6.
NUHW represents 1,300 workers at the hospital, including nearly all caregivers who are not registered nurses. NUHW members have been on strike since last Wednesday to stop UCSF’s planned integration, which would amount to illegally canceling union contracts and sharply reducing pay that East Bay workers bring home to their families — a move that is already causing long-tenured caregivers to leave the understaffed hospital.
NUHW members would lose their union, their seniority and on average about $10,000 in take-home pay, if UCSF is allowed to proceed.
“What UCSF is trying to do violates our contracts and would push out long-tenured workers who have dedicated their careers to serving kids in Oakland,” said Fran Merriweather, a social worker at the hospital. “We’re hopeful to win in court but no matter the ruling, we’re determined to defend our rights and make UCSF keep care and caregivers in Oakland.”
U.S. Chief District Judge Richard Seeborg will conduct a hearing on NUHW’s motion for a temporary restraining order stopping UCSF from implementing its “integration plan” so the status quo holds until an arbitrator can potentially determine if UCSF’s plan violates the hospital’s union contracts. NUHW has filed a separate motion to compel arbitration over the legality of UCSF’s integration plan, as required in its union contracts with the hospital. That motion is set for a hearing on July 17.
Thursday’s Schedule
The hearing is scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. today, June 26, at the San Francisco Courthouse, Courtroom 3 – 17th Floor, 450 Golden Gate Avenue.
Striking workers will board a bus at 11:30 a.m. outside the hospital at 747 52nd Street in Oakland, and travel to the courthouse. Workers will be available to talk to reporters on the Oakland picket line before departing for San Francisco and again briefly following the hearing in San Francisco.
Audio (but not video) of the hearing can be live-streamed via Judge Seeborg’s webpage.
Ongoing picket line schedule:
- Monday — Friday: 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., outside Children’s Hospital Oakland, 747 52nd St., Oakland.
Saturday and Sunday: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. outside Children’s Hospital Oakland, 747 52nd St., Oakland.
Monday and Wednesday: 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. outside Children’s Hospital Oakland Outpatient Center, 2401 Shadelands Dr, Walnut Creek.
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 money 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.
“UCSF will not improve care in Oakland by pushing out dedicated caregivers who have made our hospital so welcoming to local families,” said Jackki Patrick, a patient care assistant at the hospital for over thirty years. “We’re committed to providing the best care for Oakland kids, and we’re fighting UCSF because we know it’s only focused on its bottom line.”
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.
“This is a money grab by the University of California,” said Alexandra Aragon, an office administrator at the hospital. “UCSF isn’t trying to improve pediatric health in the East Bay, it’s trying to maximize its profit on the backs of its workers, and that will mean less care that’s accessible for East Bay families.”
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 have chosen 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.
