Healthcare workers at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland plan to start an open-ended strike Wednesday in response to what their union calls an illegal plan to cancel existing contracts. Officials with the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which represents roughly 1,300 workers, say that UCSF Health’s “Integration Plan” would amount to canceling union contracts and cutting pay at Children’s Hospital Oakland and affiliated clinics across the East Bay. “We cannot and will not stand idly by while UCSF bulldozes collective bargaining agreements it negotiated in good faith,” Keith Brown, Alameda Labor Council executive secretary-treasurer wrote in a letter to UCSF officials. The union says 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.” Those workers would lose money on the deal because they would have to pay thousands more toward health and retirement benefits, according to the union.
UCSF officials say the move supports their long-term growth plans and aligns employees under a single system. “Claims that employees are being fired and rehired are simply false. Every employee is being mapped to a position in the appropriate unit at UCSF,” according to an emailed statement. “Some take-home pay may change because today, many employees pay nothing toward their health insurance or retirement,” UCSF officials said. “Under UC employment, they will contribute — just as their colleagues across the UCSF system do — and in exchange, they will gain access to a far more valuable pension and comprehensive, long-term benefits.” Picket lines start at 7 a.m. Wednesday at Children’s Hospital Oakland on 52nd Street in Oakland and the Children’s Hospital Oakland Outpatient Center on Shadelands Drive in Walnut Creek.
I’ve been a volunteer at Children’s Hospital for a few years, and from what I have witnessed,
it takes a special kind of health care worker to care for sick and dying children, it’s not a job for just anybody. I have seen them when they will work long, hard hours saving a child’s life, and not ask for overtime pay. And, I have seen new hires quit because they found it difficult to deal with the heartbreak of a dying child. If anything, the health professionals at Children’s Hospital deserve a raise.
They sure do.