SAN DIEGO (CN) - Hundreds of unionized workers and supporters took to the streets of San Diego to back striking University of California researchers and health care and tech workers on Thursday in their demand to lift a statewide hiring freeze.
Local UC hospitals are seeing more and more patients but without the ability to hire any more people to meet that demand, staff at local hospitals are not only overworked, but patients are underserved, said UC San Diego Health pharmacist and University Professional and Technical Employees union member Wanting Huang,
"That means the ratio between pharmacists and patients is going to increase. Therefore, you're going to see potentially even longer wait times, or worse, worse patient outcomes," Huang said, standing outside of UC San Diego Health's Hillcrest Medical Center where UPTE and AFSCME workers rallied before marching almost two miles through city streets to Balboa Park, one of the city's biggest tourist attractions.
"All these buildings are being built, there's all this money for all this expansion, but we don't take workers into account in this? It's unacceptable. It's a slap in the face to us," said Thaine Ross, a pharmacy tech with UC San Diego, and a member of AFSCME 3299, surveying construction around the medical center. "We are going to show UC that we will not stand idly by and allow it to continue happening."
AFSCME and UPTE - which represent tens of thousands of service, patient care, health care, research, and education professional workers at UC campuses and community colleges across the state - called the one-day strike to demand the University of California lift the hiring freeze imposed in March that they claim was enacted without prior notice or an opportunity for the unions to bargain.
"It's unacceptable. It's unacceptable to treat your employees and your workers like this. It's unacceptable to let the patients suffer as a result of the way you treat your workers and employees. We're out here to show them that it's unacceptable all around," Ross said. "We ultimately want to give our patients our best and UC needs to start taking that seriously and start listening to the concerns of their employees."
UC officials told the unions they're willing to negotiate and "discuss any identified negotiable impacts" but the unions have not responded to offers to meet, wrote Heather Hansen, a labor communications spokesperson from the UC's Office of the President, in a press release.
"We are disappointed by the union's continued choice of striking as a negotiation tactic. These strikes cost union members a full day of pay, and they cost the university system millions of dollars. This is especially harmful considering the current economic and fiscal uncertainty in higher education and nationally. We are hopeful for meaningful progress with both unions so that we can turn our attention to the state and federal funding concerns," Hansen added.
In a press release put out in April, the university wrote that they hope that "the unions will recognize our common challenges and understand the importance of reaching a consensus on several key issues rather than maintaining adversarial positions."
Once the unions reached Balboa Park, workers from across San Diego County, including teachers, grocery store workers, stage hands, federal workers, post office workers, county workers and mental health workers spoke about their common challenges - like employers cutting staff to cut operating costs, not paying enough to afford to live in San Diego and not recognizing workers' rights to bargain for better wages and working conditions.
"They're suffering from the same issues we're facing," said Eva Galvan, a marriage and family therapist at Kaiser Permanente, while holding a large banner she helped make with a multicolor intricately crocheted text that said "mental health revolution."
"We're asking for equity," she said.
Unionized mental health care workers at Kaiser facilities in Southern California have been on strike demanding better pay and benefits to ease workloads and better patient care for more than six months.
Asked if the date - May Day, also international worker's day - was significant to start a one-day strike, Ross said he'd come out any day necessary to keep advocating for himself and his patients.
"I will keep doing this until somebody starts to listen and take these concerns seriously," he said.
The strike's scheduling for May Day also brought out people protesting President Donald Trump's administration's attacks on workers, immigrants and due process rights to the rally.
"ICE and DHS are being way too heavy handed," said Brian Campbell, who carried a sign that read "POTUS is a monster!" with information about Kilmar Abrego Garcia - a Maryland man deported by the Trump administration to notoriously harsh prison in El Salvador without trial, who the administration has refused to return to the U.S. - and Rmeysa ztrk - a Tufts University student who was detained by ICE for co-writing an opinion piece in a school newspaper criticizing her university and Israel's bombardment of Gaza.
Abrego Garcia is a union member, Campbell added. Abrego Garcia is a first-year sheet metal apprentice at SMART Local 100.
Source: Courthouse News Service
