CHEU Quarterly Roundup: Fall 2021

Submitted by ADonahue on
3 healthcare workers inside hospital

San Gabriel Valley Medical Center

At San Gabriel Valley Medical Center, we have been bargaining alongside our RN coworkers for a new master agreement with the prior agreement expiring on June 30th of this year. This contract campaign has included many collective actions along the way, one of which led to the prohibition on CNA’s floating outside of the psych unit! We also recently won a commitment from the hospital to take the appropriate steps to ensure that Surgical Techs are safely staffed when training and precepting, a big win for patient safety!  After months of organizing, delivering petitions, and a vote of no confidence, we successfully ousted an unqualified and disrespectful HR manager.


Alta Bates Summit Medical Center

Healthcare workers at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center are in bargaining, along with CNA member RNs, to negotiate a new agreement at one common table that includes 17 Sutter negotiating teams. Our CHEU bargaining team met for our first bargaining session on August 13th, our agreement expired on August 30th. Our bargaining team, consisting of Manjit Phaley, Praveen Rattan and Leslie Mils, kicked off bargaining by sharing their heart-felt stories on how the pandemic has impacted them and their co-workers. We have groundbreaking proposals on the table that address diversity and equity, infectious disease and health and safety along with many other topics. This is the perfect time to demonstrate our power and unity with CHEU and CNA standing united to tell Sutter we WILL put “Patients First”.


Children’s Hospital Oakland

CHO is experiencing sever short staffing on both day and night shift with unfilled positions requiring the on-call tech to come in and work the shift. Techs are making escalating organizing plans for better staffing through petitions and other workplace actions. We will continue to demand the employer fill the vacant positions and provide staff according to our patients’ needs.


Glendale Memorial Hospital

Over the course of the last several months we have been engaged in collective actions in support of our RN colleagues who just settled their contract. We’ve worn red masks, stickered up and attended an information picket to improve patient care. We are celebrating major victories like, double time for extra shifts worked more than 24 hours. In the last couple of weeks, we won a bonus for CHEU members in all Dignity facilities! This pandemic has proven to be some of the hardest times for healthcare workers and we will keep fighting for safety for our patients and ourselves!


Kindred San Gabriel Valley and Kindred Baldwin Park

During the course of the pandemic, Kindred unlawfully denied COVID leave to some workers at Kindred facilities. We kept fighting back and won, forcing the hospital to pay us for the time we are owed under the law. We organized and launched a petition demanding the CNO at Kindred San Gabriel Valley be removed, recently the CNO was finally ousted from the hospital. A recent class action grievance against kindred for failing to provide equity adjustment increases as per the contract was settled forcing the hospital to pay the money owed to several CHEU members.


Palomar Health

Pacita Balcom has remained a fearless CHEU leader at Palomar Health for years serving as the Chief Steward and chair of the Patient Care Committee at the hospital. Her service and leadership in building the union and negotiating contracts for the better part of two decades is proof off her tenacity and dedication to unity, collective action and improving patient care. In just these past weeks Pacita has been fighting for safe staffing and improvements in health and safety to protect all patients and healthcare workers. Pacita fought back unsafe practices of co-mingling of COVID-19 patient assignments and for lifesaving PPE for frontline staff throughout the pandemic.

After 23 ½  years at Palomar Health, Pacita will be retiring from the hospital on October 1, 2021. We are fortunate that Pacita will finish out her term as the President of CHEU!

We wish Pacita all the best and expresses gratitude for her years of strong advocacy for patients. Pacita and her leadership will be missed dearly in the hospital.

Pacita Balcom


Shasta Regional Medical Center

A heartfelt congratulations to the CHEU bargaining unit at SRMC who just received the final wage increase negotiated in their first contract! As we prepare to negotiate our next agreement, our fight for safe staffing assignments continue with walkthroughs, flyers, and collective actions. CHEU members stand united determined to win improvements.


Methodist Hospital of Southern California

Over the course of the last few months, CHEU has reached out to thousands of community members seeking support in our fight for our first contract. This resulted in hundreds of emails being sent to the hospitals CEO demanding safe staffing for CHEU members, a wage scale that addresses the current disparity, and a patient care committee to review and address safety concerns. We appreciate the support of our community that we care so much about.