REDWOOD CITY — Hundreds of support workers at Sequoia Hospital walked out of the job Monday to strike for better wages, benefits and working conditions after negotiations with Dignity Health for a new contract stalled.
The 300 nurses’ assistants, aides, surgical techs, respiratory therapists, housekeepers cooks and other essential workers voted 95% to go on strike July 7 after four months of failed contract negations with the Dignity Health system and its President Bill Graham.
Workers say the company has failed to “adequately address issues of fair pay and benefits” while also advocating for recruitment and retention of staff which has become “a major problem and has led to a crisis in patient caseload.”
On Monday, dozens of workers holding picket signs and shouting slogans like “enough is enough” and “4% won’t pay the rent” gathered at Dove Beeger Park in front of Sequoia Hospital alongside sympathetic elected officials like state Senator Josh Becker, San Mateo County Supervisor David Canepa and Menlo Park Mayor and Supervisor candidate Ray Mueller.
Dignity Health External Communications Manager Kevin Kimbrough said in a statement that the AFSMCE bargaining unit at Sequoia consists of about 300 technical and service employees, but does not include registered nurses. During the strike, he said, the hospital “will maintain its operations in order to continue to serve our community and provide care to our patients.”
As inflation makes the price of living in the Bay Area even higher and exorbitant gas and rent prices put increasing pressure on working families, workers like housekeeper Vicki Harper have had enough.
“We will no longer accept Dignity management’s pennies,” Harper said. “We deserve a fair contract with healthcare, better staffing ratios and better wages. We can’t live on their pennies. We will stay out here for as long as it takes and we will stand tall, united and together.”
Sequoia hospital workers have described the “horrible” conditions they work under, noting that they are “being stretched so thin” that workers are being “forced to work with less, which means they have less time they can spend with patients — time that can be lifesaving,” according to a press release from AFSCME Council 57.
Workers say the staffing crisis has been exacerbated by the fact that compensation has fallen far below other employers while health insurance premiums have spiked, “zapping the facility of the experienced staff needed to deliver proper care.”
Canepa called Diginity Health’s refusal to sign a contract with the union an “economic injustice” and “class warfare.”
The Sequoia Hospital strike comes on the heels of several other actions by workers at hospitals across the Bay Area, including at Kaiser Permanente and Stanford hospitals.
Back in November 2021, tens of thousands of Kaiser union workers in the Bay Area, Sacramento and the Central Valley joined a massive walkout in a sympathy strike that sent the company scrambling to find reinforcements. And in April this year, nearly 5,000 nurses at two Stanford hospitals walked out seeking better pay and working conditions, forcing the university to hire expensive traveling workers to fill the gaps.
Lionel Oubichon, who is on the union’s bargaining team and has worked at the hospital for 23 years, said workers have been unhappy with the last three contracts they have signed with the hospital but won’t do so as easily this time around. He said he hopes the hospital will raise wages and address workers’ needs, otherwise the strike will go on.
“We settled for three contracts,” Oubichon said. “When the recession happened, we said ‘we’ll take this contract to help the hospital.’ The second contract we said ‘okay, let’s deal with this, it isn’t good but we’ll deal with it.’ Third contract we had the pandemic, and we said ‘we’ll take this.’ But you know what? That’s enough taking it. It’s time for us to say no more. We deserve better. We’re tired of being undervalued.”
Yvonne Haynes, a CNA in the surgical unit, said the union is prepared to be on strike until “we can deliver the high-quality care San Mateo County deserved through high-quality jobs we can be proud of.”
“We are disappointed and saddened that they are treating us this way,” Haynes said. “We work at this hospital because we love our work, care for our patients, and are committed to this community. We have put our lives on the line through COVID, and many people left. But we stayed.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com