SAN DIEGO — Sharp HealthCare workers and their union Thursday announced a call for an unfair labor practices authorization vote next week, which if approved, could see thousands of workers striking.
Sharp represents to largest private employer in the county, with more than 5,000 workers represented by SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West. The union will take a membership vote on whether or not to strike between Oct. 29 and Nov. 1 at Grossmont Hospital, Sharp HospiceCare, Chula Vista Medical Center, Memorial Hospital, Mesa Vista Hospital, and Mary Birch Hospital for Women and Newborns.
"Sharp executives refuse to acknowledge how much patient care has deteriorated or how much the frontline healthcare workforce and patients are suffering because of the Sharp short-staffing crisis," said Dave Regan, president of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West. "The San Diego patient care crisis cannot be solved unless Sharp executives follow the law by bargaining with healthcare workers in good faith and take dramatic action now to solve the crisis by investing in its workforce."
Workers say they want Sharp to invest more in patient care, staffing and better working conditions instead of executive pay.
According to the union, the company needs to "immediately and substantively address the growing care crisis across its facilities instead of continuing to intimidate and retaliate against frontline healthcare workers."
Sharp did not reply to a City News Service request for comment. In August when workers at several of the health care group's facilities picketed, Sharp representative John Cihomsky said the union's claims about underinvestment are overblown.
"Sharp HealthCare wants the San Diego community to know that there are no threats to patient safety as the union has been claiming," Cihomsky said. "Sharp meets all state-mandated staffing ratios and has an employee retention rate of around 90%, which is among the highest for hospital systems in California. Sharp also has an active recruitment campaign to fill open positions at market-equitable pay."
However, workers with the union claim the company is committing labor violations such as retaliating against whistle-blowers.
