Members
of the National Union of Healthcare Workers at Salinas Valley
Memorial Hospital have been locked in contract negotiations since
January of this year. The bosses want to force the ongoing budget
crisis onto the backs of workers at the Salinas, Calif., public hospital by cutting
benefits and issuing layoff notices to 100 direct-care workers.
Boss
hypocrisy
The
plan forwarded by the bosses not only calls for the layoff of 100
direct-care positions but also cuts to the health and retirement
benefits for all newly hired workers. In other words, many new
hospital workers would be unable to receive medical attention even
though they are the ones who provide medical services, another
blatant contradiction of the capitalist system.
As
the hospital bosses decry budget cuts as an excuse to attack workers,
they expose their own lie in the treatment of one of their own. The
chief executive, Samuel Downing, was given a $5 million
retirement plan along with a $150,000 annual benefit.
The
bosses were also able to scrape together $12 million to spend on a
privately contracted consulting firm, Wellspring Partners, to
research and propose cost-saving cuts to the hospital. But there is
no one in the hospital more qualified to analyze and determine the
organization of the institution than the hospital workers themselve,s
since they are the ones providing services and using technical
equipment—not hospital management.
Obviously,
the decisions from the hospital boardroom were intended to benefit
the bosses and private contractors only. It is the workers who run
the hospitals and care for the public. If the CEOs disappeared,
no one would notice. But if the workers were gone for only one day,
the hospital would shut down.
Healthcare
workers strike
According
to NUHW, over 850 caregivers and technical workers at a Salinas
Valley Memorial Hospital walked off their jobs in protest on June 14
for a one-day strike demanding a fair contract. The strike was the
third since contract negotiations began in January.
The
NUHW workers said: “Our message is clear: We’re telling
management to start bargaining in good faith and settle a fair
contract that keeps our jobs and our benefits intact.”
The
hospital bosses retaliated with a two-day lockout in an attempt to
intimidate the NUHW workers and prevent future militancy. Instead of
being intimidated, the workers brought their picket line to the front
door of Harry Wardell, the District Director responsible for the
Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital. The workers picketed at
Wardell’s home and the homes of other hospital executives in
protest of the illegal lockout and refusal of bosses to negotiate in
good faith. In addition, the state’s Public Employee Relations Board
filed a complaint against hospital management for the illegal
lockout.
The health care
workers can win through collective action, and there is no stronger
weapon in their arsenal than the strike. The Party for Socialism and
Liberation extends its solidarity to the caregivers, technical and
maintenance workers at the Salinas Memorial Hospital as they continue
to struggle against the bosses toward victory.
