News of the Month — June 2023
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CBS San Francisco and Becker’s Hospital Review included NUHW member Stephanie Lum Ho, an office associate at Children’s Hospital in Oakland, in a story about members at the facility ratifying a new three-year contract that averted another potential strike that was authorized for later in the summer. The 1,300 NUHW members overwhelmingly voted to accept the contract, which includes a 13 percent pay hike that’s retroactive to 2022. “This is a good deal that honors our commitment to the families we serve and will help keep caregivers and services in the East Bay,” Lum Ho said.
In an op-ed in The Guardian, LGBT rights advocate and Unite Here International Union Community and Political Coordinator Cleve Jones says unions can help the LGBTQ+ community amid constant attacks against them. He notes that earlier this year his union negotiated deals to protect LGBTQ+ workers at union cafeterias operated by Compass and Sodexo by requiring the employer use workers’ chosen names and pronouns and offer gender-neutral bathrooms, and to have access to gender-affirming care through affordable health insurance plans.
KQED reported that Patients postponing care, burnout from the pandemic that led many healthcare workers to retire early, and staff shortages are creating long waits inside emergency departments, including at Providence system’s Queen of the Valley, where patients are overflowing in the ER, often having to wait several days for a transfer to a hospital where they can be seen by specialists.
In March 2024, Los Angeles voters will decide on a measure that would cap pay of hospital executives at the compensation of the U.S. president, or $450,000 per year. The California Hospital Association filed suit (and lost) challenging the measure, which would apply to executives, managers, and administrators of privately owned hospitals and other healthcare facilities, Los Angeles Times reported.
California voters could enshrine the right to unionize and collectively bargain in the state Constitution under a proposed amendment, reported Bloomberg Law. Supporters say SCA 7 would be a backstop against any future efforts to curb the power of labor unions and potentially bolster efforts by some workers to organize in industries where unions are less common.
The owner of northern California Mexican food chain Taqueria Garibaldi illegally denied $70,000 in overtime wages to 35 employees at two Sacramento-area locations and allegedly offered workers the services of a “priest” to confess “workplace sins.” According to Fox40, the company “paid managers from the employee tip pool illegally, threatened employees with retaliation and adverse immigration consequences for cooperating with the department, and fired one worker who they believed had complained to the department.”
The National Labor Relations Board has restored the rights of union representatives to use heated language, including occasional profanity, during arguments with management, Labor Notes reported. The Board ruled that employer Lion Elastomers had to reinstate steward Joseph Colone with full back pay going back to a 2018 discharge, reversing the Trump era’s General Motors decision, which had upended 70 years of precedent protecting workers’ rights to use strong language when pressing union points during grievance discussions and other meetings.