SAN DIEGO, Calif. – Frontline workers at San Diego County’s largest private employer, Sharp Healthcare, announced plans for a strike vote at a press conference today.
The healthcare workers, represented by SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), announced their call for a ULP strike authorization vote Oct. 29 through Nov. 1 at multiple Sharp Healthcare facilities including Grossmont Hospital, Sharp HospiceCare, Chula Vista Medical Center, Memorial Hospital, Mesa Vista Hospital, and Mary Birch Hospital for Women and Newborns.
The labor negotiations covering 5,000 Sharp Healthcare workers—represented by SEIU-UHW—have become the largest single healthcare employer labor negotiations in California.
“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.”
Healthcare workers say a series of illegal unfair labor practices by Sharp Healthcare executives related to contract bargaining is at issue as frontline workers raise the alarm over potentially unsafe staffing levels that can lead to dangerously long wait times, mistaken diagnoses, and neglect across Sharp Healthcare facilities.
“We need Sharp executives to stop breaking the law and really listen to us as frontline healthcare workers about the dangers of short staffing,” said Jesus Lopez, a Healthcare Assistant at Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center.
“I remember finding a patient sitting in their own urine because there wasn’t enough staff to care for them.
It hurts to see a patient like that, it’s humiliating for them and it breaks my heart because all I want to do is be able to care for my patients safely and with dignity.”
After more than a year of bargaining and repeated violations of U.S. labor law by Sharp executives, workers say they have no choice but to call for a strike.
Workers say 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.
The results of the strike vote will be available after 7 pm on Nov. 1.
Sharp Healthcare has a reported net worth of nearly $5 billion, pays its CEO more than $2.4 million, and gave its top executives more than $12.8 million combined in 2022.
CEO Chris Howard’s compensation has increased more than 43% since 2020 while frontline healthcare worker pay and benefits have stagnated.
Workers want Sharp to invest more in patient care, staffing and better working conditions instead of executive pay.
