-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the July 20, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
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4,000 HEALTH CARE WORKERS STRIKE FOR QUALITY PATIENT CARE
By Bill Hackwell
San Francisco
In a powerful display of union strength 4,000 hospital
workers waged a 24-hour strike here on July 6 to draw
attention to unsafe working conditions and the need for job
security. The strike affected 10 Bay Area hospitals. It was
the largest healthcare strike in the region's history.
The workers, members of Service Employees Local 250, are
mostly technicians, licensed vocational nurses, respiratory
therapists, clerical workers, housekeepers and food service
workers.
Picket lines began at 6 a.m. at all the hospitals. The
strikers were joined by a number of other unions waging
sympathy strikes, including the California Nurses
Association.
Later that afternoon some 1,000 Service Employees members
and their supporters marched downtown from Catholic
Healthcare West headquarters to Sutter Health headquarters-
-the corporations that own the 10 hospitals being struck.
The central issue of the strike is inadequate staffing
because it creates unsafe conditions for workers and
patients. If a worker calls in sick or injured no
replacement is called in. And when employees leave the job
they are not replaced, creating unsafe workloads on
remaining staff.
In the days leading up to the strike the hospitals waged a
vicious anti-union advertising campaign that portrayed the
workers as walking out on patients. But Deborah Covington,
a food service worker at Summit Hospital, explained, "We
are striking because we are fighting for safe staffing and
patient rights."
The Service Employees union has been meeting with hospital
negotiators since May 1, when the last contract ran out.
The union is demanding that the hospitals form committees
made up of workers and management to set staffing levels
and to be involved in the hiring process.
Who knows better how many workers it takes to provide
quality and safe patient care--health care workers or
hospital administrators who focus their attention on profit
margins?
The union is also demanding job security for its members,
who are mostly women of color. Hospital management claims
that shrinking insurance payments have forced them to trim
staffs.
Health care workers who went out on strike July 6 will not
guarantee that they won't strike again if hospital
corporations refuse to meet these legitimate demands.
- END -
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