To Joleen Lonigan, UC Davis Associate Chief Nursing Officer:

For two years, UPTE has been sounding the alarm that our UC Davis Licensed Clinical Social Workers (LCSWs) are paid far below comparable positions at other hospitals nearby. In the last year, more than twenty LCSWs and newly licensed clinicians have cited pay as a determining factor in leaving UC Davis. We currently have open LCSW positions with limited applicants and candidates because other hospitals pay more.

This disparity threatens the care we provide our patients as we struggle to retain and recruit LCSWs.

In 2023, the hospital responded to challenges in recruiting LCSWs by hiring MSW/ASWs for the first time in years. However, the MSW II pay scale and the LCSW pay scale overlap by all but four steps. Because of this, as our MSW/ASWs become licensed and apply for LCSW positions, they receive less than a $3/hour raise for licensure. If the university does not act on market equity for LCSWs, we will lose staff and undo this progress.

In November of 2023, leadership and Employee Labor Relations (ELR) accepted the data presented by UPTE and acknowledged the need for a market equity adjustment for LCSWs. Market equity cannot wait for the contract negotiations as our LCSWs are being recruited out of our system now. We will not be able to recruit or retain the talented clinicians our patients deserve if we are offering substantially lower than our competitors.

We demand that UC Davis leadership put pressure on ELR and Compensation to grant market equity to our LCSWs before the end of our UPTE contract in November 2024. We demand that the market equity be in the form of an across-the-board percentage increase to be equitable to all LCSWs.