At UCSD, rehabilitation specialists and clinical lab scientists are fighting and winning more equitable pay to retain staff

Congratulations to rehabilitation specialists and clinical lab scientists at UCSD, who recently mobilized as a union to fight for and win huge new equity adjustments to ensure their units are safely staffed! Rehabilitation specialists won a 12% increase to bring them up to a more fair market wage, while our colleagues in clinical lab scientists secured 6% equity increases.

"For months, we have been pushing the administration at UCSD hospitals to take action to address understaffing. UPTE members working in healthcare settings are instrumental in the delivery of patient care. Yet like many others, we're underpaid compared to peers at other nearby hospitals," said Lea Roltsch, a speech-language pathologist at UCSD and unit representative with UPTE. "Our current market equity raise is much needed progress, but the fight has only begun. While we are excited about these increases, UCSD still needs to further improve their compensation across the board to remain competitive and ensure adequate staffing. Staff also deserve backpay to account for the university's tardiness in making this situation right."

Rehab specialists, including occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, and physical therapists, knew that getting organized and ensuring high membership would be necessary. Together, we made sure we had 75% of our coworkers signed up as UPTE members before requesting a meeting with the university to address the pay disparity. The university refused to meet with us, demanding instead that we send our data via email.

After months with no response, members began reaching out to directors and organizing everyone to send individual emails to Labor Relations calling out the low pay and turnover. In January, management said they would not be giving rehab a raise. We then demanded a group meeting with Labor Relations and Compensation.

90% of rehab staff showed up at that meeting prepped and ready to speak about the patient care impacts and the 33 open rehab positions the university had been unable to fill. Labor Relations quickly backtracked and said they would send us an offer—and as a result of our efforts, we won the 12% equity increase we need.

Clinical lab specialists also won a 6% increase of their own. With a national deficiency of clinical lab scientists and the need for staff with a highly specialized scope to staff units like the burn center or liver transplants, it's essential that UCSD is offering competitive pay to avoid having services plagued by high turnover and inadequate staffing.

In both instances, we won because we proved to management that we had a strong and united membership who were ready and willing to fight for what we need and deserve for our contributions to safe patient care and the mission of UC. When we fight, we win!