Health Hospital worker union threatens strike

SAN DIEGO — With contract negotiations stalled, union workers at University of California hospitals, including UC San Diego Medical Center, say they will vote next week on whether to strike.

The strike talk started Friday with a statement from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, which represents about 13,000 employees at university medical facilities across the state.

That includes 2,061 technical workers, from respiratory technicians to licensed vocational nurses, who work alongside registered nurses and doctors in caring for patients at UC San Diego.

The university attributes the current strike talk to a refusal by the union “to agree to UC’s pension reforms,” which require employees to pay a larger percentage of their incomes toward pensions starting July 1.

UC lists pay increases of “up to 3.5 percent for the next four years” on top of 5 percent pay increases that union members have received each of the last two years as part of the benefit package offered in negotiations.

“Thus far, AFSCME has rejected all of UC’s proposals and is demanding higher wage increases and lower payments for benefits as compared to other UC employees,” the university said in a statement.

But the union says just the opposite.

“UC Medical Centers have offered their front line care workers cuts in total compensation,” the union said in its statement.

The union is also focusing on the pay and benefits paid to top executives. The union says that, according to its own research, UC has spent $100 million more on management payroll from 2009 to 2012. That extra spending, the union argues, includes growth in pension expenses.

“Some of them take home double the benefit that the governor takes home,” said union President Kathryn Lybarger.

The union’s statement indicates it will ask its membership statewide to vote on a strike between April 30 and May 2. The union has not specified a specific strike date or duration.

The same union last went on strike in 2008 with service workers, from custodians to landscape workers, picketing hospitals including UC San Diego in June of that year. Temporary workers were brought in to temporarily replace the picketers.

The two sides traded pointed statements Friday afternoon, accusing each other of putting patient care at risk.

“Clearly, if this were to happen, it would have negative repercussions on patient care, which we are striving to avoid. Our patients should not be used as union bargaining chips,” said UC spokeswoman Dianne Klein in an email.

The union accused the university of making cuts to staffing that put fewer workers at the bedside.

“A strike would certainly be painful for our members. It is clearly a last resort. But, if we are pushed to that point, we will have no other choice,” Lybarger said.

[Source]: The San Diego Union-Tribune