SACRAMENTO—Democrats allied with labor unions plan to introduce legislation on Wednesday, Feb. 15, requiring a $25 minimum wage for health care workers and support staff statewide, including hospitals, nursing homes, dialysis clinics and A fierce battle may begin.
Senator María Elena Durazo’s bill requires medical facilities and home care agencies to raise salaries for many of their support workers, including nursing technicians, housekeepers, security guards, food workers and laundries. Los Angeles Democrats said workers are still underpaid despite playing a key role in the covid-19 pandemic. Now she earns close to the state minimum wage of $15.50 claimed to be suffering from inflation.
“How do people live?” Durazo told KHN ahead of the bill’s introduction. “They shouldn’t be on the verge of being homeless. That’s what we’re facing.”
The bill is backed by the influential Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, which represents nearly 100,000 workers statewide, but similar proposals have previously faced strong opposition from the healthcare industry. was doing.
If lawmakers approve the bill and Gov. Gavin Newsom signs it, one labor leader estimates that 1.5 million California workers could receive pay increases in January 2024.
Last year, unions spent about $11 million to push for a $25 local minimum wage measure in 10 Southern California cities, while hospitals and health facilities spent $12 million to fight back. Inglewood voters approved pay increases for private hospitals and dialysis clinics, but Duarte voters rejected pay increases.
During the campaign, the Voting Affairs Committee, which receives funding from Kaiser Permanente, Adventist Health, Cedars-Sinai, Dignity Health and other hospitals and health systems in Northern California, said a $25 minimum wage would cost money. I warned you.
Earlier this month, the California Hospital Association launched a campaign asking lawmakers to add $1.5 billion to the state budget for Medi-Cal, the state’s insurance program for low-income and disabled people. Citing inflation and rising costs, the association’s president and CEO, Carmella Coyle, wrote in a Feb. 9 memo that hospitals needed urgent financial relief. : “I need help immediately”
Meanwhile, the nursing home industry says it wants to pay workers more, but says it can’t because the state pays them too little for patients enrolled in Medi-Cal. And the dialysis industry has spent more than $300 million over the past six years rejecting his three statewide ballot measures sponsored by SEIU-UHW and increasing the staffing of clinics.
Negotiations for a $25 minimum wage statewide fell apart in Congress last summer. One reason is that union leaders and hospital associations have linked price increases with delays in costly seismic retrofitting of hospitals. The contract was terminated by the California Nurses Association, the California Teamsters Public Affairs Council, and other unions concerned about worker safety. The California Dialysis Council also disagreed.
Durazo said he was happy to hear the hospital’s concerns about relaxing seismic retrofitting standards, but preferred to treat the two issues separately.
The state also recognizes the need to attract and retain workers by setting aside approximately $1 billion to help the industry address labor shortages. But labor leaders say workers need financial incentives.
Dave Regan, president of SEIU-UHW, said: “And many health workers decided this was too difficult. Too exhausting. Too dangerous.”
Joanne Speth, director of the Institute for Health Policy at the University of California, San Francisco, said raising the minimum wage could lift families out of poverty. However, it is unclear whether the bill will solve chronic labor shortages.
Costly employees can negatively impact healthcare facilities.
“If we can’t get more reimbursements from Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance companies, we’ll have to figure out how to absorb that increased cost,” Spetz said. “Or just drive the workers away.”
Since Inglewood passed legislation, wage increases have transformed Byron Vasquez’s life, allowing him to spend more time with his family. His Vasquez, a logistics technician at Centinela Hospital Medical Center, was earning $21.17 an hour restocking each floor. However, he had to work extra jobs to support his wife and daughter and was often absent from his family celebrations.
“Before the price increase, I was working two or three jobs to make ends meet,” said Vasquez, who until recently worked weekend shifts and drove an Uber at a residential care center in Beverly Hills. “It wasn’t fun because I really didn’t have a day off.” (Samantha Young/Kaiser Health News)
This article was produced by KHN, which publishes California Healthline, an independent editorial service of the California Health Care Foundation.
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism on health issues. KHN is one of the three main operating programs of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation), along with policy analysis and polls. KFF is a donated non-profit organization that provides information on health issues to the public.
