Hospital still expected to layoff employees to meet financial projections
By CORTNEY FIELDING Special to Daily Press
More than 100 service workers from the Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center could walk off the job as early as mid-April if a contract dispute with the University of California school system is not resolved.
UCLA’s 2,200 union-represented service workers from both its Santa Monica and Westwood locations last week joined employees from the eight other UC campuses and five medical centers to give union organizers permission to issue a strike if the university system continues to conduct what the union calls “bad-faith bargaining.”
The Local 3299 chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which represents the workers, has been in a deadlock with the UC system over salaries, workload and educational services since negotiations for a new contract began in September. The two parties have met 24 times over the past six months to no avail, and are now mired in state-mandated mediation.
Wage disputes are at the center of negotiations, as the union wants UC to institute salaries they find comparable to those received by other area workers.
According to a study by the National Economic Development and Law Center, UC workers are being paid well below their counterparts in other area institutions — up to 26 percent lower than workers in the state’s community colleges.
Luz Ramon, who has worked in the catering department on the UCLA campus for nine years, said she must collect recyclable cans to suppement her income and support her three daughters.
“It is so hard,” she said, adding that she is paid so little that she can’t afford to give her family any luxuries. “When they ask me to take them to Disneyland, I have to say, ‘what about the (city) park?’”
The NED&LC study reported that 98 percent of single UCLA service workers with children live below the California self-sufficiency standard of $35,056 a year.
“Many workers fall below what it takes to pay for basic family needs like rent, food, child care and transportation,” the report said.
Ramon said she spends her days worrying about how she will pay college tuition for her daughters.
According to UC representative Noel Van Nyhuis, the figure the union is asking for is well beyond anything the universities could actually pay. AFSCME wants about two times what the system actually has, he said.
Union officials say they also are unhappy with UC’s unwillingness to guarantee an across-the-board raise for service workers in the new contract. The university would like to guarantee raises, but it can’t without money from the state, Van Nyhuis said.
While Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made what’s known as a “compact agreement” with the UC system that will include money for service worker raises in the state’s upcoming budget, it must still pass through the legislature. If it fails to pass, the university system cannot guarantee there will be money available for systematic raises.
“We just don’t know at this point,” Van Nyhuis said.
Union officials remain unconvinced. “Every professional would expect to have a guaranteed raise included in their contract,” said Nicole Moore, spokesper-son for Local 3299. The union is only asking for the same, she said.
Union officials called UC’s decision not to guarantee a raise disrespectful. While service workers throughout the state have not been given a universal raise in two years, medical executives throughout the system were given $2.4 million in bonuses in October of 2004, according to UC documents.
Former CEO Michael Karps was given a $63,000 bonus for the 2003-2004 fiscal year, while at the Santa Monica medical center, chief medical officer Michael Herbst was given a bonus of $15,500, according to UC documents.
In an attempt to work through the stalemate, the dispute has been turned over to a government-mandated mediator. The parties are now in the “fact-finding” stage, where each side gets a chance to make their case to the mediator, who will most likely deliver a recommendation by mid-April, according to union officials.
Neither party, however, is required to follow the contract recommendation, and once mediation comes to an end, the union is legally allowed to strike.
Employees don’t want to walk off their jobs, said Moore, but they are prepared to do so if administrators don’t meet their demands.
Although she is struggling financially, Ramon said she is willing to forgo her paycheck for as long as it takes.
“This is my struggle,” she said. “I do it for my girls.”
AFSCME officials said 92 percent of those who voted approved the potential strike, but they wouldn’t release the total numbers of service workers who participated in the week-long vote, saying only that there were twice as many members who voted than in previous elections.
Van Nyhuis said the refusal to release the numbers might suggest not many of the union’s 7,300 service workers actually voted.
UCLA and the other UC campuses have not made any specific preparations in the event of a strike, Van Nyhuis said.
“Right now, the system wants to focus on negotiating a fair contract,” he said.
The proposed strike comes one month after UCLA announced that it would be laying off approximately 40 workers from the Santa Monica site in response to declining profits. While the hospital should bring in about $11 million in profits, the figure is way below what officials had anticipated, said hospital spokesman Ted Braun.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 25, 2005. Read the original PDF.