As a response to what their union considers to be an unlawful plot to terminate existing contracts, healthcare workers at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland want to begin a strike that will last for an indefinite period of time on Wednesday.
There are approximately 1,300 workers who are represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, and according to officials with the union, the “Integration Plan” proposed by UCSF Health would amount to the cancellation of union contracts and a reduction in pay at Children’s Hospital Oakland and affiliated clinics located throughout the East Bay.
“We cannot and will not stand idly by while UCSF bulldozes collective bargaining agreements it negotiated in good faith,” Keith Brown, executive secretary-treasurer of the Alameda Labor Council, wrote in a letter to UCSF executives. “We will not stand idly by.”
The labor organization contends that 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.”
According to the union, those workers would incur financial losses as a result of the arrangement for the reason that they would be required to pay thousands of dollars more toward health and retirement benefits.
As a result of this shift, personnel will be aligned under a single system, according to officials at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
“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 a statement.
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“Some take-home pay may change because today, many employees pay nothing toward their health insurance or retirement,” UCSF officials stated. “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 will begin at seven in the morning on Wednesday at the Children’s Hospital Oakland Outpatient Center, which is located on Shadelands Drive in Walnut Creek, as well as at the Children’s Hospital Oakland, which is located on 52nd Street in Oakland.
