UCLA resident physicians continue negotiations over salary and housing stipend
UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine administrators promised a $5,000 stipend and allotted an extra $1,250 per stipend to cover taxes. However, psychiatry resident Michael Mensah said in the email chain he consulted an experienced payroll manager and concluded nearly $3,500, not $1,250, were needed to cover taxes. (Liz Ketcham/Assistant Photo editor)
By Armando Carrillo
Feb. 20, 2019 11:52 p.m.
Resident physicians at UCLA will continue bargaining with the university over their salaries, an incomplete housing stipend and other benefits after more than four months of negotiation.
The Committee of Interns and Residents, the union representing over 1,200 residents and fellows at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, will negotiate with UCLA on Thursday for a new three-year contract.
Gregory Gabrellas, a psychiatry resident and member of the CIR bargaining committee, said the union wants a 7 percent annual increase in salary for the next three years.
UCLA has proposed a 2.5 percent annual increase for the next three years, Gabrellas said. However, inflation in the Los Angeles area was at an average of 2.47 percent from 2000 2018, essentially canceling out the salary increase.
“Basically, they’re saying that they’re willing to entertain keeping the salaries the way that they are,” Gabrellas said.
Gabrellas added the union wants a salary that keeps up with the rising cost of living in Los Angeles and is comparable to similar institutions like Stanford and Yale.
Marguerite Thorp, a pediatrics resident and co-chair of the CIR bargaining committee, said CIR requested a annual housing stipend that is comparable to the $12,100 UC San Francisco offers its residents.
UCLA has proposed a $7,000 stipend for next year with $1,000 consecutive increases the following two years, Thorp said.
Danielle Smith, a then-spokesperson for the UC Office of the President, said in an October statement the housing stipends offered at different UC campuses are negotiated based on their local housing markets.
The average rent in San Francisco is $3,609 while the average rent in Westwood is $3,416. Westwood’s average rent is 44 percent higher than the Los Angeles average of $2,371.
Phil Hampton, a UCLA Health spokesperson, said the university is working to reach a contract that addresses resident concerns.
“UCLA Health and the David Geffen School of Medicine recognize concerns about the cost of living in the Los Angeles area, and we remain committed to addressing this and other important topics in a fair and equitable contract,” Hampton said. “We believe a contract agreement is best negotiated at the bargaining table.”
Thorp added the union requested a $2,000 pretax payment for all residents as a remedy for receiving a smaller housing stipend this year.
“They’ve proven that it’s too complicated for them to promise us after-tax amounts, (so) we proposed the $2,000 payment to all residents, regardless of the tax rate,” Thorp said.
Kate Perkins, associate dean for Graduate Medical Education at the school of medicine, informed residents they would receive a $5,000 housing stipend as a post-tax amount, according to an email she sent to residents in February 2018.
However, when residents received the stipend in September, many said they received only a fraction of the $5,000, with several receiving $1,200 less than what they were promised.
The Daily Bruin obtained a series of emails from UCLA Health administration through a records request, further detailing what happened with the incomplete housing stipend distributed in September.
Perkins said in the email chain she wished she had announced the stipend as a gross amount of $6,250, instead of the take home amount of $5,000.
“It probably goes without saying, but I certainly didn’t anticipate that the tax cut for the housing allowance would be as high as it was,” Perkins said in the chain.
Administration had allotted an extra $1,250 in order to cover taxes for each resident, according to the email chain. Some residents, Perkins said in the chain, received less than the expected $5,000 due to their individual tax brackets.
Psychiatry resident Annika Burnett said in the email chain she would like leaders at the institutional level to be transparent about how they calculated the $6,250 figure. She said it seems like the majority of the residents received less than $5,000 for their take-home pay.
Psychiatry resident Michael Mensah said in the email chain he consulted an experienced payroll manager and concluded the $1,250 cushion was nowhere near the amount needed to cover his taxes.
Their calculations suggested a gross stipend of $8,457.37 would be needed to provide a $5,000 take-home amount, not the $6,250 gross amount that was provided.
Jacob Lentz, a emergency medicine resident who advocated for the housing stipend, said in the email chain he was surprised institutional leadership attempted to carry out a post-tax housing stipend because he and colleagues never advocated for a post-tax amount. When trying to persuade UCLA Health to implement the stipend, he said he and colleagues presumed they were discussing pretax dollars.
Lentz added UCLA invested over $9 million for the housing stipends but was not contractually obligated to offer any housing stipend in the first place.
Gabrellas said UCLA negotiators do not want to provide a remedy for the fragmented housing stipend. However, he said the union is considering legal action if negotiators do not offer a solution.
