Organizing victory at Verdugo Hills Hospital brings NUHW membership at USC to nearly 2,000

While NUHW-represented workers at Keck Medicine of USC have been winning strong contracts that improve wages and benefits, their counterparts at USC’s Verdugo Hills Hospital have faced lower pay, poorer benefits, and less job security without the power of a union.

But that will change after 168 workers, who include medical technicians, licensed vocational nurses, and respiratory therapists at the hospital voted to join approximately 1,800 of their Keck-USC counterparts as NUHW members.

The victory at Verdugo Hills continues a series of successful organizing drives throughout the Keck-USC system. It also comes as NUHW members in the system’s flagship units prepare for contract bargaining to improve upon their previous agreement that raised wages between 11 and 39 percent for most workers with even bigger raises for workers at the university’s call centers and clinics.

“People are happy,” said Valerina Shahmirzayans, an ultrasound tech at Verdugo Hills. “I feel like all the hard work we put in paid off. I feel amazing.”

Life without a union

The workers at Verdugo Hills started organizing this year as it became clear they were falling behind their counterparts who had joined NUHW.

Shahmirzayans said that she and her coworkers often have to work through their lunch hour because the hospital isn’t safely staffed and that their wage increases aren’t guaranteed and haven’t kept up rising prices or the raises that NUHW members have been getting.

“We are overworked, underpaid, understaffed, and that’s a shame for USC,” Shahmirzayans said.

Growing stronger at Keck-USC

This has been a year of steady growth for NUHW within the Keck-USC system. In the past year, workers at the Pasadena Lab, Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy, USC Downtown Clinic, USC Spine Center and the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center have voted to join their colleagues as NUHW members.

University officials tried their hardest to stall the unionizing momentum at Verdugo Hills, going so far as to offer some workers managerial positions, but their tactics just made workers more determined to organize.

The unionization drive isn’t over at Verdugo Hills. A unit of 198 service workers will soon vote on whether to also join NUHW. Shahmirzayans would love to welcome her colleagues into NUHW, which would surpass 2,000 members at the university with another organizing victory.

For Shahmirzayans, being part of NUHW means finally having a real voice in her workplace instead of just being an employee.