Fil-Am nurses, healthcare workers join strike at 4 hospitals in Southern California

The Prime Healthcare striking workers brave stormy weather to join picket lines at four big hospitals. CONTRIBUTED

LOS ANGELES – Filipino American nurses and healthcare workers were among the 1,800 front-line workers who began a seven-day strike yesterday at four big hospitals in Southern California.

The strike, which will extend through the Christmas holiday, is the second recent work stoppage at Prime Healthcare facilities in the region.

The first took place in October, when the same union, SEIU United Healthcare Workers West, went on a five-day strike.

“We are taking this action during the holiday season to protect our patients and ourselves,” David Santos, a Fil-Am licensed vocational nurse at Encino Hospital Medical Center, told Inquirer.net. “We have been stretched thin for far too long.”

Santos said patients are “not receiving the quality care they deserve” and hospital workers are constantly overwhelmed by the workload.

“It’s time for Prime executives to address the short staffing crisis and put patients first,” he said.

The Prime Healthcare striking workers braved stormy weather to join picketlines at Prime St. Francis Medical Center, Lynwood; Prime Centinela Medical Center, Inglewood; Prime Encino Medical Center, Encino; and Prime Garden Grove Hospital Medical Center, Garden Grove.

Picket lines will run daily from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday through Friday. Although there will be no picket lines after Friday, the strike will extend through the holiday, with workers returning on Dec. 27, according to SEIU.

According to a statement from Prime Healthcare, the Ontario, California-based company is continuing to negotiate with SEIU.

“Proposals have been delivered to the union from the hospital that would increase wages and provide a valuable health care plan, maintain important benefits, and be competitive with other hospitals in the market,” according to the company.

Fil-Am nurses and healthcare workers were among the 1,800 frontliners who began a seven-day strike yesterday. CONTRIBUTED

“It is disappointing that despite progress being made, the union has walked away from negotiations and has chosen to strike, but that will not impact our commitment to providing quality patient care to our communities throughout the holidays and always.”

The union says workers are taking the action “after months of trying to address the facilities’ long-standing issues of understaffing, worker turnover, and patient care concerns at the bargaining table.”

SEIU-UHW says its efforts have been met 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,” Dolores Aguilar, a unit secretary at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood, said in a statement.

“We are exhausted and overwhelmed and are struggling to provide quality care,” she added. “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.”

Aguilar is one of four front-line health care workers suspended from the medical center just days after participating in a protest over staffing and patient care conditions at Prime Healthcare’s headquarters in Ontario, according to SEIU.

Front-line health care workers participating in the strike include emergency room technicians, licensed vocational nurses, certified nursing assistants, radiology technicians medical assistants and respiratory technicians, the union said.

Prime Healthcare said the hospitals will remain open during the strike. (With CNS report)