UC worker protest stops traffic

Police arrested 25 people in Westwood Friday during a protest organized by unionized University of California patient care workers against the UC.

About 200 people were protesting the University’s decision to implement its last contract offer without reaching a settlement with the workers’ union.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees 3299 chapter, which represents about 12,000 UC patient care workers, had been deadlocked in negotiations with the University for several months.

The UC’s contract offer for AFSCME 3299 includes increased pension contribution rates for workers, a paid time-off program that combines sick leave and vacation days, a 2 percent wage increase in July and a 1.5 percent wage increase around Oct. 1, among other components.

“Having completed all stages of the bargaining process … the (University) is legally entitled to implement its last proposal,” said Dwaine Duckett, UC vice president for systemwide human resources and programs in a statement released last week. “We would have preferred to reach a settlement, but this implementation provides our patient care staff with fair wage increases and good benefits now, rather than forcing them to continue waiting through stalled negotiations.”

The contract offer has been accepted by eight other unions, and its terms already apply to non-unionized UC workers, according to the UC statement.

AFSCME 3299 spokesman Todd Stenhouse, however, said the 1.5 and 2 percent wage increases are minimal, particularly when compared to the increased pension contributions that AFSCME workers will have to pay.

AFSCME workers also said they are upset that the University did not increase staffing levels at the UC medical centers when UC executives earn six-figure salaries. AFSCME members have also said they are overworked and that patient care has been compromised.

“The UC made a really stupid and destructive decision. They shredded collective bargaining,” said Kathryn Lybarger, AFSCME 3299 president. “What they did is a huge affront to the patients who walk through these doors.”

On Friday afternoon, AFSCME members and supporters first gathered for a rally at the corner of Westwood Boulevard and Le Conte Avenue, crying various chants such as “No contract, no peace. No justice, no peace.”

The demonstrators then marched down Westwood Boulevard, continuing their chants and blowing whistles, and blocked the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Westwood Boulevard.

Police then arrested 25 protesters who sat in the middle of the intersection for failure to disperse, said Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Andy Neiman.

The protesters were cooperative in their arrests and no injuries were reported, Neiman added.

The main unresolved issue for AFSCME 3299, is staffing levels at the UC’s medical centers. Judy McKeever, a respiratory therapist at UC San Francisco, said she and other AFSCME 3299 workers have seen UC hospital management take cost-cutting measures such as recruiting outside unskilled workers, using video cameras instead of workers to supervise patients and having workers do longer shifts.

Lybarger said patient health has been endangered, and that AFSCME 3299 workers are upset the University closed negotiations without making changes in staffing levels.

“We’re the ones who are taking care of the patients. We’re the ones who need to be listened to,” McKeever said.

In May this year, AFSCME 3299 also organized a strike at UC medical centers for the same concerns of safe staffing and patient care.

“We’re not giving up,” said Lawrence Scinta, a radiation therapist at UC San Diego who attended the rally on Friday. “You can’t shut us up about this.”