A strike by
nurses and other patient care workers at University of California (UC) hospitals
and medical centers entered its second and final day Wednesday, despite efforts
by the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) to block some
employees from participating. UC officials said it would “threaten public
health and safety,” the SF Appeal reported this week. The dispute involves
over 12,500 employees, who are represented by the American Federation of State,
County and Municipal Employees Union (AFSCME). Hundreds of members of the
University Professional and Technical Employees Union threatened to join in a
one-day sympathy strike on Wednesday.
According to
AFSCME officials, the PERB injunction only barred around 120 employees from
participating. Almost twenty-four of them had already been exempted from
striking under the union’s “Patient Protection Task Force,” which allowed them
to cross the picket line to help maintain emergency patient care.
UC officials
predictably condemned the strike, saying it would cost them $20 million “to
ensure patient safety” for two days, while completely ignoring how their own
policies endanger patient safety every day of the year. Some of these policies
include downsizing patient care staff, which reduces the ratio of nurses to
patients. It has also resulted in a reduction in the Lift Teams used to shift
immobilized patients in order to reduce bed sores and increase circulation.
This is one of the more dangerous responsibilities of patient care workers
because of the risk of lower back and other injuries and it becomes even more
risky when there aren’t enough staff members to do it safely.
In an
attempt to vilify the union and turn public sentiment against them, senior vice
president for health sciences and services, Dr. John Stobo, said “It is
completely inappropriate to threaten services to patients as a negotiating
tactic—the health of our patients must not be held hostage.” Another official
said that the staffing reductions were an inevitable consequence of revenue
losses stemming from Obamacare (or the Affordable Health Care Act), which is
reducing Medicare and Medical payments. Yet, according to one union member, the
university’s hospitals have been making over $100 million in profits every year
for the past 15 years (KPFA Morning News, 5/22/13), while administrative salaries
have soared. In reality, the cuts have far more to do with maintaining high
profits and administrative salaries and have been a far bigger threat to
patient health and safety than a short, two-day strike.
While health
care workers, like teachers and many other public sector workers, do provide
essential health and safety services, this cannot be used to compel them to
work under dangerous conditions that threaten their own health and safety. Wage
workers have little freedom in the long term (one must work for wages in this
society in order to feed one’s family)—hence the term Wage Slave. However, they
do (at least in theory) have the right to withhold their labor in order to
fight for better, safer working conditions, unlike chattel slaves, who could be
beaten or killed for such impudence. According to Dr. Stobo, however, hospital
workers do not even have this right because of their role in maintaining
patient health and safety. (Similar arguments have been made to ban teachers’
strikes). Yet, if we take this argument to its logical conclusion (i.e., that patient
health and safety trump all us), health care should be provided free of charge
to everyone, since profit-
and insurance-based healthcare result in thousands of preventable and premature
deaths each year. Likewise, hospitals should be required to provide all
necessary services to maintain both patients’ and workers’ health and safety,
and not be permitted to reduce these services either to maintain profits or
administrators’ bloated salaries.
UC and
AFSCME have failed to come to an agreement on several contractual issues,
including staffing ratios and the demand that workers pay more toward their
pension plans. Unfortunately, a limited two-day strike is unlikely to cause
enough pain to compel the bosses to concede to the workers. To make matters
worse, many employees crossed the picket lines, including AFSCME members. The Los Angeles Times reported that 601 AFSCME members crossed
the picket line at UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital,
out of 1,095 scheduled to work, a solidarity rate of less than 50%.
