This marks the second strike in a year protesting threats, intimidation, and bad faith bargaining by their employer
This marks the second strike in a year protesting threats, intimidation, and bad faith bargaining by their employer
For Immediate Release:
December 18, 2023
Media Contact: [email protected]
LOS ANGELES – Approximately 1,800 frontline healthcare workers at four Prime Healthcare facilities in Southern California are set to go on a seven-day unfair labor practice strike over the Christmas holiday season starting on Wednesday, December 20 at 7:00 a.m. as caregivers have urged management to provide safe staffing levels and offer additional support to attract and retain hospital workers.
Workers are taking this action of last resort after months of trying to address the facilities’ long-standing issues of understaffing, worker turnover, and patient care concerns at the bargaining table. They have been met only by bad faith bargaining, and other unfair labor practices by Prime Healthcare management.
“For months, Prime management has been intimidating and attempting to silence healthcare workers for raising concerns about patient care and short staffing at their hospitals,” said Dolores Aguilar, a Unit Secretary at St Francis Medical Center in Lynwood. “We are exhausted and overwhelmed and are struggling to provide quality care. We are going on strike again because Prime executives are bargaining in bad faith and are refusing to listen to us about worker and patient safety. ”
Dolores Aguilar is one of four frontline healthcare workers suspended from Prime St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood just days after participating in a protest over staffing and patient care conditions at Prime Healthcare’s headquarters in Ontario.
The upcoming strike is the second recent work stoppage at Prime Healthcare facilities in Southern California. The first took place in October when the same group of workers, represented by SEIU United Healthcare Workers West, went on a five-day unfair labor practice strike.
Frontline healthcare workers participating in the strike include emergency room technicians, licensed vocational nurses, certified nursing assistants, radiology technicians medical assistants, respiratory technicians, and many others.
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SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) is a healthcare justice union of more than 100,000 healthcare workers, patients, and healthcare activists united to ensure affordable, accessible, high-quality care for all Californians, provided by valued and respected healthcare workers. Learn more at www.seiu-uhw.org.