Staffing, pay at issue in UC medical center strike

University of California patient care workers took to the picket line early Tuesday to begin a two-day strike for better staffing and higher pay.

At Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, they wore green shirts, carried noisemakers and chanted, “All day, all night, safe staffing is our right!”

Cecilia Calvillo, who works as a mammogram technician, said she has to rush from one patient to another and often can’t give them the time and attention they deserve.

The patients often feel stressed and vulnerable as they wait to find out whether they have breast cancer, she said.

“When you don’t have what you need staffing-wise, these patients don’t get what they need,” she said.

Shantea Barnes, a phlebotomist, said she is worried about her pension and her future.

“UCLA has such a great name in America, but they don’t really treat their workers well,” she said.

Barnes said she was nervous to strike, but she decided it was the right thing to do for herself and for her colleagues.

Workers walked out at all five medical centers run by the University of California: in Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Irvine and San Diego.

UC officials said all the hospitals would remain open and continue treating patients. But they postponed surgeries, procedures and other nonessential treatment.

At UCLA, officials expected delays and disruptions to care. On Tuesday morning, Ester Rivera, 59, brought her 85-year-old mother in for an ultrasound, but she didn’t know whether it would happen.

When she called to confirm the appointment last week, staff members told her to come, but they couldn’t guarantee she would be treated.

“It’s an inconvenience,” she said. “We came from Bakersfield, a long way. Hopefully we won’t have to come back.”

Officials say the massive walkout could cost the system’s medical centers up to $20 million, officials say.

The walkout is expected to last two days and involve more than 12,000 UC workers from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

The strike, which began at 4 a.m. Tuesday, involves respiratory therapists, nursing aides, surgical technicians and other patient care workers.

An additional 3,400 workers from the University Professional and Technical Employees union plan a one-day sympathy strike.

UC officials prepared for the walkout by canceling elective surgeries, chemotherapy treatments and other medical procedures.

Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center hired about 400 temporary workers to cover the shifts of those on the picket lines, said Tom Rosenthal, chief medical officer.

After the UC system sought to limit the number of participants, a Sacramento County Superior Court judge ruled Monday that about 450 employees cannot take part in the walkout.

The judge issued an order that the unions must maintain a minimum level of staffing among certain units, including the burn centers, the intensive-care units and the neonatal intensive-care units.

If all the respiratory therapists in the burn centers and poison-control units were to strike, the court ruled, there would be a “substantial and imminent threat to public health or safety.”

The two sides have been negotiating for nearly a year over a new labor contract. The union says that the UC medical centers have unsafe staffing and that officials are more concerned about executive salaries than about front-line care providers.

UC officials have defended their safety record and said the union is resisting the pension changes that more than a dozen other bargaining units have agreed to.

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anna.gorman@latimes.com