“It’s horrible that these folks have to be on strike,” he said, calling UCSF’s plan “a Trumpian move” to force workers out of their union.
“Children’s Hospital is a community organization,” Rosselli said. “It’s a rare institution where members’ grandchildren and children work at the hospital. They take care of their kids at the hospital. And this forced integration by UCSF is putting all of that at risk.”
A spokesperson for UCSF said the company couldn’t comment on pending litigation, but argued that it had made “multiple good faith offers” to meet with the union to discuss transition concerns and “bargain its effects.”
“The Union has refused to conduct any effective bargaining,” Jess Berthold, the UCSF spokesperson, said in an email. “We are disappointed in NUHW’s decision to strike and disrupt the care we provide to our young patients at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland and its clinics.”
Berthold said the hospital has taken steps to ensure that patients still have access to important critical care services during the strike, including the emergency department and operating rooms. And she said its Walnut Creek facility, which temporarily shut down last week, has partially reopened to in-person visits.
The strike follows a series of major health care labor battles across the country in recent years, including several actions this year alone at UC medical centers throughout California, where workers have staged short strikes over alleged unfair labor practices.
For Maggie Lewis (no relation to Cameron), who has been a chef at the hospital for 25 years, the fight is about protecting the rights of the health care workers who have long served this community.
“It’s a shame what UCSF is trying to come over and do. It’s also illegal,” said Lewis, who was born and raised in Oakland and was treated at this hospital as a child. “You know, most of these people here, they’ve never had to pay for insurance. Now, you want them to pay for insurance. They can’t afford that.”
Lewis said she plans to retire at the end of this year, so the UCSF proposal would have little direct impact on her.
“But I still have to fight with my colleagues that I’m going to leave here,” she said. “I’m ex-military. ‘Leave no man behind,’ that’s always been my quote. So that’s my whole thing. I’m gonna fight to the end with my colleagues.”
Correction: UCSF did not acquire Children’s Hospital Oakland in 2014, as this article previously stated. Rather, the two institutions became affiliated that year.
KQED’s Jasmine Garnett contributed to this report.
