UCSF Fresno residents vote to unionize. They say protections were stripped, funding cut
An overwhelming majority of UCSF Fresno interns, residents and fellow physicians voted to unionize after seeing their program benefits being slashed and the number of residency slots being decreased — actions they say took place in the midst of the pandemic, according to a Monday news release.
The union authorization cards to join the Committee of Interns and Residents/SEIU were filed with the California Public Employment Relations Board, which is expected to process the request and certify the union in the next few weeks, according to the release.
The vote was Friday. Certification usually takes 30 days, said Tricia Piper-Bennett, with a public relations firm representing the Committee of Interns and Residents. Piper-Bennett said there’s a little over 300 members in this UCSF Fresno group seeking to unionize.
Eric Day, an internal medicine resident at Community Regional Medical Center, said the overall motivation in deciding to form a union was to ensure that both Community Regional Medical Center and UCSF Fresno continue to understand the importance of the residency program.
“We are trying to do what we can to secure that future in a time of uncertainty,” he told The Bee.
The primary affiliated hospital with UCSF Fresno’s residency program is Community Regional Medical Center.
“Many residents, like me, call the Central Valley home,” Dr. Sarah Koser, a first-year emergency medicine resident physician, said in the release. “We are invested in our community and are unionizing to ensure we can continue to provide the best care possible to our patients.”
This group will join about 6,000 other UC resident physicians who have unionized in recent years in order to improve their working conditions and patient care, according to the release.
Meal stipends, residency slots reduced
The UCSF Fresno resident-led efforts started as they began to see their benefits being cut back in the midst of the pandemic. Residency slots were reduced, according to the release.
Mica Rudich, an organizer with Committee of Interns and Residents/SEIU, said some of the specific benefits that saw cuts included a meal stipend. The stipend was reduced from $300 per month to $50 per month, and the change is supposed to go into effect at the beginning of the 2021 academic year, which would be July 1, she said. (Rudich initially stated incorrectly that the stipend was $350.)
Those affected, Rudich said, also haven’t received their cost-of-living raises since 2019. The residents rotate at over 20 sites in and around the Fresno area, and the cuts come from UCSF Fresno, she said.
Day, however, said the cut for the meal stipends came from Community Regional Medical Center. The hospital, he said, used to provide about $300 on a badge for residents per month, which was “really helpful.”
Residents, he said, would start with $20 on their badge every day, and they would lose whatever wasn’t spent for the day.
“A lot of us are going to be forced to spend money out of our own pockets or try to order (food) from outside the hospital, which we don’t always have time to do,” he told The Bee.
USCF Fresno is the employer for the residents, Day said, but the actual funding to pay for those positions comes from the hospitals where the residents work. Community Regional Medical Center is the “major source of funding for pretty much all of the residency programs,” and the hospital contracts with UCSF Fresno.
“The pandemic has highlighted the critical importance of our healthcare system as a pillar of our community,” Dr. Nathan Dreyfus, a first-year emergency medicine resident physician, said in the release. “But it has also demonstrated that resident physicians are asked to bear a burden — in terms of workplace risk, workload, hours, stress and personal sacrifice — that is often out of proportion to the level of support we receive.”
That’s when it became evident the UCSF Fresno residents needed a place to express their concerns and take control of their training, the release says.
“In the midst of a pandemic our protections were stripped, positions and funding cut,” Dr. Eric Blumenfeld, a first-year psychiatry resident physician, said in the release. “Administrative pressures forced undue stress upon us, jeopardizing our ability to fulfill vital healthcare roles. We are unionizing to ensure we have the necessary resources to continue caring for our gravely disadvantaged and deserving community to a respectable standard.”
CRMC doesn’t ‘believe’ number of slots decreased
UCSF Fresno referred questions to the UC Office of the President.
Erika Cervantes, a spokeswoman with the UC Office of the President, would only provide a brief statement on Monday, and wasn’t able to answer additional questions.
“The University of California values its resident physicians and their many contributions to UC,” she said in the statement to The Bee. “UC neither encourages nor discourages unionization. UC supports employees’ right to make an informed decision and choose for themselves.”
Community Regional Medical Center is one of the several sites for the UCSF Fresno training rotations, said Michelle Von Tersch, senior vice president for communications and legislative affairs for Community Health System.
“While Community doesn’t control the number of residency slots, we don’t believe the overall number has decreased,” she said in a statement to The Bee. “Some of the residents’ time at Community has shifted to other locations such as Family HealthCare Network, Veteran’s Administration and Kaiser Permanente Hospital.”
Residents working at the medical center, Von Tersch said, are able to get free daily meals and snacks in the physician lounges.
Day said that is true, and residents are appreciative of that, but he said, the problem is that the food at the physician lounges is only available “during certain hours.” With the food money residents used to get on their badges, they were also able to get food from more locations at the hospital, including the cafeteria, a cafe and a coffee shop.
The Community Health System, Von Tersch said, has invested $540 million in medical education since 2010.
This story was originally published June 7, 2021 at 12:23 PM.
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