The UPTE Update: SF council meeting; UCSD CDIs secure remote work; UCSF workers win on transit… and more!
Welcome to The UPTE Update, a monthly newsletter from University Professional and Technical Employees.
In this edition:
Hundreds of UPTE workplace and unit representatives convene in San Francisco
UPTE leaders from every UC campus gather in the Bay Area to celebrate recent wins, share skills, and continue strengthening our union.
Speakers addressed a variety of critical topics, including:
Fighting to protect public healthcare, research, and education.
Pressuring UC leadership to invest in safe staffing and fair pay.
Expanding our union from wall-to-wall, leaving no eligible UC professional unrepresented
The future of medicine once physicians join our union (watch here).
… and countless other organizing stories and skill workshops!
The relationships and power we continue building together will fuel our momentum as we approach the start of our contract campaign next year!
Newly-organized UPTE members at UCSD push for—and win—right to remote work
Clinical Documentation Specialists (CDIs) at UC San Diego Health organized to secure one remote work day per week.
Why it matters: CDIs tried to secure remote work in 2020 to no avail. After joining our union late last year, they reignited their effort to improve work/life balance with a hybrid schedule.
A new approach: CDIs wrote and signed a petition, delivered it to department leadership, spoke with key decision makers, and landed a meeting between workers and management.
The pressure worked. Following the meeting, the Chief Administration Officer heard the collective voice of our members and agreed to their proposal.
"For years, we have been asking for a hybrid work week to improve our quality of life. Since recently becoming members of UPTE, our entire department has overcome many challenges. We finally had our voices heard and secured one remote work day per week! We will continue negotiating for another remote work day through the support and strength of our union."
Carol Sedlacek
Clinical Documentation Specialist 3
UC San Diego Health
UCSF workers win on transit
Click here to see UCSF Clinical Research Coordinator, Peter Emanuel, speak on this win.
Commute time and costs are eating away at too many of our personal lives and paychecks. Following a UCSF "BayPass" pilot program that provided low-cost public transit to a small pool of workers, UPTE members at UCSF conducted a survey and found that:
73% of UPTE members spend at least an hour commuting to work.
10% spend more than 3 hours on their daily commute.
Some members living in surrounding counties were paying up to $500 per month in transit costs.
We gathered 1,000 petition signatures to demonstrate widespread demand for UCSF to expand free or low-cost transit options to all workers.
Our efforts prevailed! Building upon UAW 4811's transit benefits, we expanded BayPass to all UCSF workers on a sliding scale:
Any UCSF worker earning less than $73,000 per year is eligible for BayPass at no cost.
No UCSF worker will pay more than $45 per month to access this newly-secured benefit.
UCI Health nurse case managers strengthen worker and patient safety
Nurse case managers (NCM) at UCI Health Los Alamitos took action and wonimproved worker and patient safety.
NCMs were regularly caring for 40 to 50 patients at a time, despite vocalizing our concerns. Unsafe, unmanageable workload demands made it challenging for us to fully assess our patients and review their charts.
So, we organized:
All UPTE members in the department attended planning meetings and signed a petition.
Everyone stood together to deliver the petition to the Chief Nursing Officer (CNO).
All impacted members documented unsafe assignments.
UPTE members across UCI departments called the CNO to demand a meeting.
We secured a series of meetings with UCI Health leadership where all of our NCMs spoke out about the urgent need for more staff. Our collective action paid off!Here's what we secured:
Reduced the staffing ratio from 40-50 patients per NCM to 25 or less based on acuity.
Hired one additional FTE.
Obtained a commitment from UCI Health leadership to hire additional FTEs as needed to drop the staffing ratio to 20 patients per NCM based on acuity!
"We fought to address staffing because our first priority will always be patient care. It was dangerous and unsustainable. Organizing, being unified as a department, and taking collective action made the difference." — UCI Health NCMs Helen Huh, Roxanne Du, and Esmerelda Aguilar
UCSF social workers escalate demands for safer working conditions
UCSF social workers are still demanding change after 9 months of inaction by UCSF to address safety concerns following the on-the-job killing of our colleague, Alberto Rangel.
Despite audits and fines against UCSF, leadership has not acted sufficiently to address the core issues putting workers and patients at risk.
During a week of action, UPTE members showed up to a Giants game at Oracle Park to pass out flyers and zines highlighting UCSF's hypocrisy in sponsoring a ball game while at the same time understaffing their clinics.
The following day, more than a hundred members gathered with elected officials and community members for a vigil and action. State Senator Scott Wiener, Assemblymember Catherine Stefani, Assemblymember Matt Haney, every San Francisco City Supervisor, and the San Francisco Labor Council signed a letter to Chancellor Hawgood calling for urgent action.
We're keeping up the pressure until our UCSF social worker colleagues get the justice they deserve.
