Scores of Santa Clara County hospital and health lab workers are on strike as the county scrambles to relaunch lifesaving care at a long-depleted East San Jose hospital.
Nearly 200 clinical lab scientists, microbiologists, medical laboratory technicians and other workers at county hospitals and public health labs are on strike until Thursday. The strike will affect Santa Clara Valley Medical Center and O’Connor Hospital in San Jose, St. Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy and the county’s public health labs.
After their labor contract expired in September, union leaders with Engineers and Scientists of California Local 20 said the county is insisting on adding language into its new contract that didn’t previously exist. Union leaders said the language would bar them from going on strike and require workers to rotate between hospitals based on staffing and resource needs. County hospital leaders, who requested anonymity to speak freely, denied ever proposing language that would shift people between facilities. But they acknowledged proposing new language on the no-strike clause.
The idea of floating workers around Northern California’s largest public hospital system, which stems from budget woes forcing Santa Clara County to stretch its resources, has on several occasions pitted county leaders against their medical workers.
“Those instruments we run are quite complicated and they vary a lot from hospital to hospital,” Danny Biocini, a phlebotomy and accessioning manager overseeing lab assistants at clinics throughout the county, told San José Spotlight.
The union’s members are critical to high-risk and lifesaving medical procedures, such as providing lab results measuring oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in patients’ blood when they’re on heart-lung bypass machines.
County officials are already under immense pressure. They’ve been working around the clock to restore trauma, heart attack and stroke services by April 1 at Regional Medical Center in East San Jose, the long-depleted private hospital it purchased last year. It’s a much-applauded addition to the public hospital network despite the county’s $250 million budget deficit.
“The county’s foremost commitment is to ensure continued access to critical health care services. Our focus is ensuring our hospitals remain open,” County Executive James Williams told San José Spotlight. “We’re still on track to acquire and take operations of Regional Medical Center in less than a week. That remains a clear focus.”
The county’s hospital costs, driven mostly by payroll and supplies, routinely outpace revenue by hundreds of millions of dollars. This requires the county to make up the difference every year with hundreds of millions in taxpayer money. Meanwhile, the county’s largest stream of federal money and funding source for its public hospitals will be washed away if Congress follows through on its proposed $880 billion in spending cuts to Medicaid, known as Medi-Cal in California.
“Reaching a financially sustainable agreement is critical given the current financial challenges facing local governments,” a county spokesperson told San José Spotlight. “In the meantime, Santa Clara Valley Healthcare will make the necessary preparations to ensure that all critical lab work can proceed so that our patients can receive the compassionate and critical care that they need.”
Union workers unanimously voted in February to authorize an unfair labor practice strike, with nearly 90% of eligible workers participating in the vote and 100% of participants voting “yes.”
The union wanted to come to an agreement with the county in October, but leaders said negotiations have been stalling. Biocini said salaries have not been a major issue for the union during negotiations, but the pay county leaders are offering is tied to the contract language they claim the county has insisted on.
A labor negotiation update from county officials — published in February — said compensation remains an outstanding issue. The county in December proposed a 5% increase for lab workers upon finalizing the new labor contract, with 4% raises in the second year and 3% raises in the third and fourth years.
Board of Supervisors President Otto Lee said it’s critical to reach a sustainable agreement amid financial uncertainty over federal spending cuts.
“In light of these tough times, we really need to stick together,” Lee told San Jose Spotlight. “I hope both sides can reach a reasonable compromise and continue working.”
Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X.
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