UPTE members at UCSD Health flex their collective strength to put the brakes on mandatory “flexing off”
The practice of “flexing off” healthcare workers occurs when management believes that the number of staff on shift is greater than needed for the number of patients on caseload. It’s generally seen as a cost-cutting measure because most impacted workers are paid an hourly wage instead of salary, and can have serious implications for workers.
Union contracts often have language governing how or if a practice like this can be used by management, and UPTE’s healthcare (HX) contract at UC is no exception. Recently, however, members in the UCSD Health Rehabilitation Department noticed that management had begun trying to get around our contract language to send people home on slow days.
“We had finally got our staffing levels up to a pretty good place when our census suddenly dropped. Management started to flex people off, first asking for volunteers who wanted to go home. That was less of an issue, but when they started mandating that people go home without pay, we sat up and took notice,” said Lea Bishop, a Speech Language Pathologist and UPTE Co-Chair at UCSD.
“People who have been there for a while were sometimes allowed to use PTO or sick time to flex off, but people on probation had to go home without pay—and the least senior people were the most likely to be sent home,” Lea recalled. “This is stressful for people with bills to pay. We need to make a predictable amount of money each month so we can budget enough to live near our jobs. Even using PTO when flexed off makes it harder to take planned vacations, contributing to burnout and poor work/life balance. This is ultimately bad for our patients, too.”
It’s also concerning for management to have that much arbitrary ability to decrease people’s hours. The impacts on financial stability, job security, work/life balance, and the ability to maintain a predictable schedule all contribute to morale issues.
Lea brought these concerns up in a regular meeting that she and the rehab unit reps have with their director at UCSD Health, in which they try to collaboratively address issues before they become larger problems. It’s a meeting that Rehab members fought hard to get, and which includes a committee of leaders from every discipline and location. In that meeting, the staff pointed to the article in our contract that prohibits mandatory flexing off and the changing of schedules. Management put an end to the practice almost immediately.
“Having a space for regular check-ins with supervisors and management is a good thing provided they are listening in good faith. But our strength doesn’t come from meetings. We have power in our union at work because, without us, there would be no one else to care for our patients. That’s where our collective strength comes from. I believe that we were able to get such a quick resolution to this issue because we have worked so hard to build up our organizing muscles. We have not hesitated to hold rallies, circulate petitions, march on our bosses, and escalate our tactics when management isn’t responsive to our needs,” Lea said.
“It’s a good reminder that having a strong working knowledge of our contract and being confident asserting that knowledge is important, but knowledge is only power if we put it into practice and aren’t afraid to back it up with action,”Lea concluded.