Nurses at a major children’s hospital in California sent back to work after two-day strike

Nurses of Rady, contact the WSWS today if you need help building an action committee.

On Wednesday, about 1,600 nurses at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, California, returned to their jobs after a two-day strike over inadequate pay and benefits. The strike is the first in the union’s history since the formation of United Nurses of Children’s Hospital (UNOCH) Local 1699, an affiliate of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 20 years ago.

Rady Children’s is the fifth largest children’s hospital in the country and the largest on the West Coast. As the only Level I pediatric trauma center in the region, the hospital is on the front lines of health care crises that include chronic and severe staffing shortages and emergency department overcrowding.

Health workers are battling ongoing waves of COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), rhinovirus, enterovirus, adenovirus and influenza. The situation has worsened as the government has suspended all tracking, testing and tracing activities for COVID-19, as well as containment measures such as high-quality filtration systems in public facilities.

Rady nurses cite skyrocketing inflation and the cost of living as having led to pay cuts as wages have not kept pace. Their salaries are also well below those of other health care providers in the region.

One nurse on the picket line told the WSWS: “It’s all about fair pay. We have nurses who can’t afford to take their children to their own hospital, nurses who work two or three jobs.” Another added: “We get paid 34 percent less than other doctors and many nurses can’t afford to send their children to our own hospital because they’re paid too little and don’t get benefits.”

On Sunday, UNOCH rejected a last-minute offer from the hospital that would have increased basic salary by just one percent in the first year of the contract, from eight to nine percent, and by four percent in each of the two years thereafter.