SERVICE AND PATIENT CARE WORKERS will go on strike Friday at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center to protest the university’s decision to lay off more than 130 frontline patient care workers at UCSF and UC San Diego.
The workers are represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, the UC system’s largest employee union. Earlier this week, thousands of AFSCME Local 3299 UC workers participated in a one-day strike at UCSD.
UCSF Health said it will continue regular operations, including emergency and scheduled care, and will maintain most scheduled appointments and surgeries during the strike.
AFSCME voluntarily exempted a small number of critical care workers from participating in the strike and created a line of communication with UC hospitals, enabling select striking workers to support emergencies if needed, the union said in statement.
Earlier this month, the union filed an unfair labor practice charge with the state’s Public Employment Relations Board over staff layoffs at UCSF and UCSD hospitals. The union alleges that the university failed to notify or bargain with union officials over the layoffs.
The union has also criticized the university for getting rid of workers while keeping on contract vendors to perform the same jobs at higher costs and for failing to legally challenge the Trump administration’s termination of federal grants.
UCSF said in a statement the layoffs are part of a broader effort to address serious financial challenges and protect their ability to provide patient care in the years ahead.
The eliminated positions — a quarter of which are part-time and almost half of which are at a manager level — were spread across the health system and “focused in areas that would minimize the impact on patient care and daily operations,” according to UCSF. The layoffs included 11 full-time positions represented by AFSCME, they said.
“While these layoffs represent approximately 1% of UCSF Health’s total workforce, we recognize that these are more than just positions — they are people who have given their time, skill, and heart to UCSF Health,” the UCSF statement said.
AFSCME and the UC system have been negotiating successor contracts for almost 40,000 service and patient care workers for over a year, according to the union’s statement. Existing contracts expired last July for patient care workers and in October for service workers, according to UC. More than 13,000 union-represented UC service and patient care workers have voluntarily left their jobs over the past three years, the union said.
Union President Michael Avant urged UC to remember its “legal, financial, and moral obligation to consider alternatives to layoffs.”
“Cutting the lowest-paid frontline patient care positions out of the hospitals’ labor budgets and adding their duties to remaining staff was the option with the greatest human toll, but it was the only option UC considered,” Avant said. “Instead of engaging constructively with frontline workers over their well-founded staffing and cost of living concerns, UC keeps choosing to bypass bargaining and make things worse.”
UCSF affirmed its continued dedication to its core mission.
“Our vision remains unchanged: to be the best provider of health care services, the best place to work, and the best environment for teaching and research. Staffing changes are aimed at safeguarding our ability to do that — for the patients and communities who count on us — well into the future,” UCSF said.
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