As wage and benefits negotiations between the California
Nurses Association and the
of
their ninth month, grievances from another union, the American Federation of
State, County and Municipal Employees, regarding a contract for the
university’s 11,000 patient-care technical employees have further exacerbated
the statewide debate over the university’s treatment of its medical workers.
The three-year contract, which will establish both wages and
medical benefits for PCT employees — which includes dental hygienists,
respiratory therapists and nursing aids — has been on the bargaining table
since July 2007. Until recently, the university was reluctant to declare an
impasse, claiming that there was still progress to be made.
“We felt that we had more to bargain over,” said Nicole
Savickas, human resources and labor coordinator for the UC Office of the
President.
AFSCME Local 3299 President Lakesha Harrison, a licensed
vocational nurse, said that if university officials were interested in making
progress, they would have made it already.
“We have been there for months, and they have not made one
significant proposal,” she said.
almost every job classification in her unit at UCLA are at least 25 percent
below market level, creating a disturbingly high turnover rate.
“Every time [new employees] come, I have to train them,” she
said. “They are there for six months to a year, and then they say, ‘OK, now I
can go to Kaiser.’ It is potentially dangerous to patient care when people are
coming and going like that.”
Among AFSCME’s initiatives are a $15 state minimum wage for
PCT employees, the elimination of pay cuts for health care and pension and the
implementation of an annual automatic step system, which would inform employees
up front of their scheduled raises for the duration of their contract.
Savickas said it would be fiscally irresponsible for the
university to implement these initiatives, which, according to a recent press
release, would cost UC medical centers more than $75 million over the course of
the contract. She said that many of the university’s other financial
responsibilities, such as maintaining and improving current medical facilities
and equipment, are often overlooked.
“We have our different budgets, and those have to be
allocated across a bunch of different budgets,” she said.
Harrison criticized the university’s priorities, saying that
employee conditions should be considered before the facilities in which they
work.
“It’s really bad to have a great facility and nobody to work
there,” she said.
Local AFSCME representative Celene Perez said that even when
minimal raises have taken effect, they have been undermined by hikes in
separate areas such as health care and parking. She cited a recent UCSD
proposal to raise the staff parking fee from $81to $100, a move she said
illustrates the disconnect between the university and its staff members’ basic
needs.
“If you look at the top administration, they’re not really
sure what’s going on,” Perez said. “They don’t understand how certain things
need to be restructured to make things better.”
Jessica Agost, a surgical technologist at the UCSD Medical
Center’s Thornton Hospital, said she is disappointed that after providing
students with such an outstanding education, the UC system fails to retain them
as professional employees.
“They don’t understand that the patients are the ones who
suffer,” she said.
The California Public Employment Relations Board has
approved the declaration of an impasse, and a state-appointed mediator is
scheduled to meet with both parties at the end of this month.
