Medical center labor lobbies in lobby

  CHRIS BACKLEY/Daily Bruin Mark Speare
(foreground), of UCLA Health Care, hears hospital service workers
voice their complaints Wednesday afternoon.

By Benjamin Parke
Daily Bruin Reporter

A few dozen medical service staff crowded into an elevator lobby
““ some with turquoise work smocks sticking out from
underneath their green union shirts.

Before them, a man neatly attired in black pants, a navy blue
shirt and striped tie stood at an office threshold.

“Good afternoon. How are you?” said the man.
“I’m Mark Speare. Welcome.”

As UCLA Health Care’s associate director for patient
relations and human resources, Speare greeted service staff from
the university’s medical center who had clambered up a
snaking stairwell to his office in the Bank of America building on
Westwood Boulevard.

In the 10-minute Wednesday afternoon encounter, the workers
aired grievances on what they perceive as unfair treatment by
hospital management. Among their concerns were cutbacks in their
department ““ resulting, they said, in overwork for remaining
staff ““ and the “per diem” status of a number of
workers and its consequent lack of benefits.

“We feel like we’re getting the shaft,” worker
Michael Burgess told Speare.

For two years, Burgess has done cleaning work as an employee of
the unit support associates department of the Medical Center. He
said many of the workers in his department don’t make enough
money for the amount of work they do ““ because they’re
classified as “per diem” workers, and not career
employees.

He said cutbacks have added to the problem.

“We barely can do the job as we are because of the
shortness of staff,” Burgess told Speare, complaining that
the hospital was getting dirtier because the cleaning can’t
get done.

Another employee of the department, Willa Carter, said its
workforce has been cut from 200 to about 120 personnel recently,
with another 30 percent cut in the works.

Carter, Burgess and others who gathered in the lobby are members
of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
union, which is negotiating with the university to obtain full-time
positions for staff who now work on a per diem basis. Such staffers
are found in a variety of departments such as respiratory therapy,
care partners and the kitchen.

UC unions recently won a victory in which the university agreed
to classify “casual” workers as career employees if
they work 1,000 hours per year. The unions had complained that the
casual status meant less pay and benefits for essentially the same
work as full-time staff.

Speare said the reclassification wasn’t applied to per
diem employees because of uncertainty as to when those workers
would be needed.

“Our census can fluctuate by 120 patients on any given
day,” he said.

Another complaint he heard from the lobby concerned worker
safety.

Hospital service staff had been accustomed to using several
different types of cleaning agents for different types of tasks
““ one for feces, blood and sputum, another for toilets and
another for glass, for example. Now they have only two kinds of
cleaners to draw from, leading to suspicion as to whether things
are really being properly disinfected.

Thin trash bags that easily break were another problem for
workers handling waste in a hospital environment.

“They’re just trying to buy the cheapest things they
can find,” said Pilar Burgess, a service staffer who is
sister-in-law to Michael Burgess.

Students from UCLA organizations Consciencia Libre and the
Environmental Coalition joined in the protest.

“There are many students on this campus in full support of
what the workers are demanding. They shouldn’t be a sub-class
of workers,” Kirsten Isaacson, Environmental Coalition
president, told Speare.

Speare said he was open to hearing details of worker grievances
in further discussions.

“There are a lot of issues that you raise that I
can’t solve in the lobby of the second floor of this
building,” Speare said.

“Bring it to the table. You don’t have to bring it
to the big table up north (with UC negotiators in Oakland). Bring
it to the table locally,” he added.

After a rhythmic clap, with chants of “or we’ll be
back…we’ll be back…we’ll be back,” the
workers peacefully left the building.

Speare later said he wants to hear more about worker concerns. A
meeting is scheduled for next Tuesday.

He added that the hospital is self-supporting and that the
federal Balanced Budget Act has resulted in a cut in Medicare
reimbursements, leading to tough times for UCLA’s Medical
Center and other hospitals around the country.

As for worker safety issues: “Maybe we can set up a
mechanism where we do joint environmental rounds (inspecting the
hospital). If people want a better work environment, I think
we’d be very interested in pursuing that,” Speare
said.