UC Patient Care Workers Call Two Day Strike, May 21st-22nd
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 10, 2013
CONTACT: Todd Stenhouse, [email protected],
(916) 397-1131
UC Patient Care Workers Call Two Day Strike, May 21st-22nd
Hospital Service Workers will sympathy strike, Pickets Planned at All Five UC Medical Centers
Oakland: Moments ago, the nearly 13,000 UC Patient Care Technical Workers (EX Unit) represented by AFSCME Local 3299 issued a ten day notice to UC’s Office of the President of their intention to engage in a two day strike, May 21st-22nd. These workers will be joined on the picket lines by UC hospital service workers (SX Unit), who will engage in a sympathy strike.
Read the Ten Day Notice to Strike filed on behalf of UC Patient Care Technical Workers Here
Read the Ten Day Notice to Sympathy Strike filed on behalf of UC Service Workers Here
The announcement comes after nearly a year of stalled contract negotiations and mediation sessions, and less than a week after thousands of Local 3299 members—members of both the patient care and service units–voted 97% in support of authorizing a strike.
“It’s time to put patients before profits,” said AFSCME 3299 President Kathryn Lybarger. “This strike is about standing up for the students, patients and taxpayers the UC Medical System was intended to serve. UC’s increasingly unsafe staffing practices and growing culture of executive entitlement are undermining patient care quality and unnecessarily putting lives at risk. We will not rest until UC gets its priorities straight.”
Earlier this year, Patient Care workers released a hard-hitting whistleblower report documenting the detrimental impact that new profit incentives are having on both patients and providers within a $6.9 billion UC Medical system that is already banking hundreds of millions of dollars in profits each year. This was followed by the elimination of 300 jobs at UCSF Medical Center, a $1.2 million dollar whistleblower settlement charging patient neglect at UC Irvine, UC VP of Health Services John Stobo admitting to lagging patient satisfaction across the UC Medical System at an event last Friday, and yesterday’s announcement that UCLA’s Ronald Reagan Medical Center has received a substandard patient safety rating from a leading healthcare buyers group for the second straight year.
Earlier this year, Patient Care workers released a hard-hitting whistleblower report documenting the detrimental impact that new profit incentives are having on both patients and providers within the $6.9 billion UC Medical system. This was followed by the elimination of 300 jobs at UCSF Medical Center, a $1.2 million dollar whistleblower settlement charging patient neglect at UC Irvine, and UC VP of Health Service John Stobo admitting to lagging patient satisfaction across the UC Medical System at an event last Friday.
“UC has already given workers and patients a preview of what’s to come if we don’t stand up and demand change today,” Lybarger added. “It was UC that decided to put profits before patient care and it is UC that has the power to stop this strike. The ball is in their court.”
The dates and duration of a strike have yet to be finalized, though AFSCME 3299 can lawfully call a strike any day now. AFSCME 3299 has committed itself to patient protection measures, including providing 10-day notice of a strike, and formation of a Patient Protection Task Force.
UC Patient Care Technical Workers include Respiratory Therapists, Nursing Aides, MRI Technologists, Licensed Vocational Nurses, Surgical Technicians, Pharmacy Technicians, Security Guards, Hospitality workers, Hospital Assistants, and many others.
