Election victory: Workers at Sutter Care at Home San Francisco join with NUHW
Forty-nine workers from Sutter Care at Home San Francisco voted March 31 to join NUHW.
The caregivers include schedulers, home health aides, medical records specialists, intake specialists, RNs, LVNs, LVN care coordinators. They are joining more than 1,000 NUHW-represented Sutter workers in Sacramento, Concord, San Leandro, Santa Cruz, and at San Francisco’s California Pacific Medical Center.
These new members are eager to negotiate their first contract that provides a manageable workload to improve work-life balance, wins raises and competitive salaries, and protects healthcare and retirement benefits. By unionizing, these workers also seek an opportunity to advocate and spend quality time with their patients to help them with their conditions and therapies.
“I am excited we won our union and are a part of NUHW because it will give us a chance to have our voices heard and to take collective action to make the changes we want to see actually happen,” said RN Anna Foster. “We want fair wages, raises, evaluations, case loads, and processes in place for call offs, overtime, job expectations and a real voice at SCAH on decisions about patient care. We won’t be at the mercy of management’s constant changes, but instead will have important issues laid out in our contract.”
The organizing victory comes at a time of increasing growth for NUHW, as healthcare workers seek more power in their relationships with their employers. Recently, 850 registered nurses and healthcare professionals at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital in Orange County voted to join NUHW, bringing total union membership above 16,000.
The workers at Sutter Care at Home San Francisco will now focus on identifying their top priorities for contract bargaining and electing a bargaining committee for upcoming negotiations.