About 15,000 hospital workers, including radiology technicians began a three-day strike at the University of California (UC) medical centers across the state over “unresolved contract talks.” The strike, according to reports from KABC-TV, will affect thousands of patients.
The walk out also includes patient care technical workers, respiratory therapists, pharmacy workers, laboratory workers and others. Another 24,000 union workers are also joining the strike “in sympathy.”
Medical workers have been without contracts since Dec. 2017. One of the chief factors behind the strike is the union’s wish for the university to “stop outsourcing low-wage work that it claims is fueling widening income, racial and gender gaps for workers at UC's hospitals, clinics campuses and research facilities.”
UC says the outside service contracts are “false information” spread by union leaders. UC also noted unionized patient care workers increased by almost 19 percent throughout the last five years but outsourcing work “had stayed relatively flat.”
To read the story on KABC-TV's website, click the link below.
As a senior news writer for TriMed, Subrata covers cardiology, clinical innovation and healthcare business. She has a master’s degree in communication management and 12 years of experience in journalism and public relations.