The UC Davis Medical Center. Photograph Source: Coolcaesar at en.wikipedia – CC BY-SA 3.0

In Sacramento, more than 150 University of Californian [UC]  residents and fellows gathered for the first of 17 statewide rallies, dubbed “unity breaks,” at UC Davis Medical on June 2. The medical professionals there, members of the Committee of Interns and Residents-Service Employees International Union, launched a wave of similar union labor actions at UCLA and UC San Diego on June 10. 

CIR-SEIU represents 1,007 residents and fellows at UCSD and 1,500 at UCLA.

UC San Francisco’s unity break occurs on June 11, with 200-300 members expected to attend the rally.

The CIR-SEIU bargaining unit includes about 6,300 employees across nine UC campuses and medical centers. A new collective bargaining agreement would combine eight local contracts into one overarching agreement that, according to UC management, reflects the different practices and priorities and across campuses.

(Residents are physicians who are completing foundational specialty training after medical school. Fellows are physicians who have completed their residency and undergo additional specialized training.)

Confidential Mediation between the labor union and management began on June 2. The union and management remain apart on several issues.

According to the union, for the past nine months of bargaining for a collective agreement with UC executives, these negotiators have lacked a grasp of what physicians require to work safely and effectively, and have bargained in bad faith instead. 

Heather Hansen is a UC spokesperson. “The University of California remains committed to good-faith bargaining with CIR-SEIU and to reaching an agreement that supports medical residents across the system,” she says. “We continue to discuss a range of issues, including compensation, benefits, and resident safety, as part of ongoing negotiations.

“These talks are complex because they involve consolidating eight local contracts into a single agreement across multiple UC locations. Medical residents are essential to UC’s mission, and we value their contributions.”

Dr. Gloria Tavera is a CIR-SEIU member and Gastroenterology Fellow at UC San Francisco. 

“UC executives should be moving forward,” she says, “not backward, on the benefits they offer us—the frontline physicians who help keep the hospitals running and our communities cared for. Their clawbacks feel like an attack on our ability to have a family and survive as human beings.”

Clawbacks are benefits the union has won for members in past collective bargaining agreements and are at risk of losing. Three examples the union wants to keep are an education fund, meal stipends and fertility benefits. 

Union benefits cost money. Federal and state governments along with clinical care revenue fund graduate medical education in California. Asked if there are changes in one or more of the three funding sources for UC spending on medical interns and residents, Hansen, the UC spokesperson, declined to comment.

“This contract not only affects resident working conditions,” Dr. Dayak says, “but it also directly impacts patient care conditions. That is why we are fighting for benefit protections for affordable healthcare and fertility support, workplace safety, including making sure residents can get home safely after 24+ hour shifts and ending the boarding crisis in the Emergency Department, plus fair pay for residents across the UC’s – all to ensure that CIR doctors can focus on delivering excellent patient care.” 

Boarding happens when patients are kept in the emergency department when they’ve been admitted because no inpatient beds are available. This issue can worsen when there isn’t enough care staff such as nurses available. 

The CIR is the biggest union of resident and fellow physicians across the U.S., and represents over 34,000 interns, residents, and fellows practicing medicine in California, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington, and Washington, D.C.