OAKLAND, Calif. — Hospital workers ended a strike at University of California Benioff Children’s Hospital here June 30 after a judge denied a motion by their union, the National Union of Healthcare Workers, for an injunction to halt the University of California at San Francisco from “integrating” the hospital into it. The move, scheduled to take effect July 6, would cancel their union contracts, cut wages, raise health insurance costs, as well as force them to join different unions and lose seniority.
“Our strike is over, but our fight is still going on,” Willie Williams, an orthopedic technician at the hospital, said in a statement by the union, which represents the 1,300 workers at this hospital and 19,000 health care workers in California and Hawaii. “We’re proud that we have taken this stand for each other and for the care that we provide East Bay kids. We know that what UCSF is proposing will push out long-tenured caregivers, and we’re still determined to reverse it.”
To make their point, the workers organized lively lunch-hour picket lines the week after the strike ended.
The union is returning to court July 17 seeking to compel arbitration over their charge that UCSF’s “integration” plan violates their contract with the hospital.
“Our union is strong, but they’re trying to bust it,” Jackki Patrick, a patient care assistant and National Union of Healthcare Workers shop steward, told the Militant as she handed out burritos to those on a lunch-hour picket line July 3. “We need people to attend the court hearing and wear red,” she said. “The integration is an attack on us. They want to cut our pay by 9% and raise our health insurance and then they will offer ‘transition money.’ We say it’s chump change and we’re not going for it.”
The union is organizing a bus for workers to attend the hearing.