Workers at Clinic Strike Over Contract
About 200 health-care workers from five Watts Health Foundation clinics, whose financial woes prompted state seizure last year, launched a three-day strike Wednesday to protest a new contract that slashes their benefits.
Nurses, clinical assistants and clerical workers from the Lynwood, Huntington Park and Compton clinics joined workers at the Watts and Inglewood facilities in the county’s third strike by health-care workers in two weeks. The protesters all are members of Service Employees International Union Local 399.
State regulators last August took over the foundation--an HMO with 96,000 enrollees in Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties--citing financial mismanagement and nearly $60 million in debt. The proposed union contract--which includes adding medical co-payments--is necessary to keep the troubled foundation alive, state officials said.
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