Caregivers at Fountain Valley Regional authorize strike as Tenet reports revenue growth
Christina Rodriguez at a May 6 rally outside Fountain Valley Regional Hospital & Medical Center. NUHW employees voted Wednesday to authorize a strike ahead of upcoming contract talks.
(File Photo)
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Unionized workers with Tenet Healthcare including hundreds of respiratory therapists, nursing assistants, technicians and emergency and operating room staff at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital & Medical Center have authorized a strike that could begin as early as next month.
Voting results were released Wednesday by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, the same day Tenet Healthcare Corp. announced to shareholders the company had earned a second-quarter net income of $257 million, including $24 million in COVID-19 stimulus grants.
Southland Hospitals Don't Require Employees To Get Vaccinated - Los Angeles, CA - While nationwide uproar brews over hospitals requiring staff to get the COVID-19 vaccination, LA area hospitals have no such policy.
The uproar from some hospital employees gained national attention this week, when the Houston Methodist hospital system in Texas suspended 178 workers for failing to meet a Monday deadline to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
While some hospitals face pushback from employees over mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policies, hospitals in Los Angeles and Orange counties have largely avoided the issue, with hospital representatives saying they aren't requiring workers to get the vaccine.
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Employees rallied outside Fountain Valley Regional Hospital & Medical Center Thursday to demand better wages and benefits for essential workers who fed, cleaned up after and sat with COVID-19 patients during the pandemic but say they can barely afford their own healthcare.
More than 100 people turned out at the Fountain Valley facility managed by Tenet Healthcare to draw attention to the fact that, while nurses were granted hazard pay and executives received COVID-19 bonuses, many employees working in high-risk scenarios for much lower salaries received no such extra compensation.
“I was working in the ICU every day,” said Eunice Zamorano, an environmental services (EVS) employee who cleaned rooms where coronavirus patients had been treated, with only gloves and a surgical mask for protection. “It was a very scary time. [But] we didn’t get an extra pay due to COVID.”