Healthcare workers at MarinHealth Medical Center will hold a one-day strike Tuesday, April 16
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 12, 2024
Contact: Matthew Artz, 510-435-8035, martz@nuhw.org
Picket line will go from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
While MarinHealth Medical Center has netted strong operating profits in recent years, its medical technicians, who operate critical equipment like X-ray and MRI machines, have been falling behind, struggling to make ends meet in one of the nation’s most expensive counties. Yet, despite losing about one-third of its medical technicians over the past year, the public hospital district is insisting that those who remain accept a contract with lower wage increases and higher medical costs than it has provided to other hospital employees.
“We’re on the front lines, taking care of this community. To treat us like this is just a slap in the face,” said Cierra Thlang, an X-ray technologist who lives in Novato. “Our hospital has been successful because patients know they’ll get good care from experienced caregivers, and management is putting that at risk. We’re losing too many good healthcare workers, and we’re struggling to replace them.”
WHO/WHAT: A one-day Unfair Labor Practice Strike by more than 100 medical technicians including MRI technologists, pharmacy technicians, ultrasound technologists and cardiac sonographers, who have been without a contract since last October.
WHEN/WHERE: 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday, April 16, outside MarinHealth Medical Center, 250 Bon Air Rd, Greenbrae, CA 94904
MarinHealth Medical Center (formerly Marin General Hospital) is a 327-bed public district hospital that also serves as a Level-3 trauma center. The hospital has posted $62.9 million in operating profits between 2021 and 2022. Yet, it pays its medical technicians significantly less than local competitors such as Kaiser Permanente and UCSF Health. Between March of 2023 and the beginning of this month, the number of medical technicians at MarinHealth represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers plummeted 52 percent from 163 workers to 107.
To restore staffing levels, workers are seeking raises that approach what registered nurses received from the hospital, which exceeded 5 percent per year. However, the hospital is insisting that the medical technicians accept annual raises of only 2.5 percent per year and accept steep increases in their healthcare costs – increases that exceed what the registered nurses must pay.
“In the last month, we’ve had three radiology technologists leave to work at higher paying hospitals with better healthcare options,” Thlang said. “All we want is fair treatment, so we can keep our healthcare workers and give our patients the best possible care.”
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The National Union of Healthcare Workers is democratic, member-led union that represents 19,000 healthcare workers in California and Hawai’i.