SAN FRANCISCO BAY
AREA
4,000 health care workers
strike for quality patient care
By
Bill
Hackwell
San
Francisco
In
a powerful display of union strength 4,000 hospital workers waged a 24-hour
strike here on July 6 to draw attention to unsafe working conditions and the
need for job security. The strike affected 10 Bay Area hospitals. It was the
largest healthcare strike in the region's history.
The
workers, members of Service Employees Local 250, are mostly technicians,
licensed vocational nurses, respiratory therapists, clerical workers,
housekeepers and food service workers.
Picket
lines began at 6 a.m. at all the hospitals. The strikers were joined by a number
of other unions waging sympathy strikes, including the California Nurses
Association.
Later
that afternoon some 1,000 Service Employees members and their supporters marched
downtown from Catholic Healthcare West headquarters to Sutter Health
headquarters--the corporations that own the 10 hospitals being
struck.
The
central issue of the strike is inadequate staffing because it creates unsafe
conditions for workers and patients. If a worker calls in sick or injured no
replacement is called in. And when employees leave the job they are not
replaced, creating unsafe workloads on remaining staff.
In
the days leading up to the strike the hospitals waged a vicious anti-union
advertising campaign that portrayed the workers as walking out on patients. But
Deborah Covington, a food service worker at Summit Hospital, explained, "We are
striking because we are fighting for safe staffing and patient
rights."
The
Service Employees union has been meeting with hospital negotiators since May 1,
when the last contract ran out. The union is demanding that the hospitals form
committees made up of workers and management to set staffing levels and to be
involved in the hiring process.
Who
knows better how many workers it takes to provide quality and safe patient
care--health care workers or hospital administrators who focus their attention
on profit margins?
The
union is also demanding job security for its members, who are mostly women of
color. Hospital management claims that shrinking insurance payments have forced
them to trim
staffs.
Health
care workers who went out on strike July 6 will not guarantee that they won't
strike again if hospital corporations refuse to meet these legitimate demands.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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