Caregivers who work at Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital are rallying to have their pensions, healthcare plans and vacation time restored after the hospital cut the benefits as part of a 2023 bankruptcy filing, says the union that represents the employees.
Hundreds of employees of HHMH—including caregivers, nursing assistants, respiratory therapists and medical technicians—held a demonstration outside the Hollister hospital on Oct. 29. The employees are represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers.
Their union contract expired in June, and the healthcare workers are seeking to restore the eliminated benefits and secure fair wages.
“We love being able to care for our friends and neighbors, but we can’t stay silent when we see our hospital being mismanaged and our patients suffering the consequences,” said Admitting Representative Rosario Campos. “We lost a lot of good caregivers after management took away our benefits, and we can’t restore safe staffing for patient care without restoring what was taken away from caregivers.”
HHMH spokesperson Marcus Young said the hospital is currently negotiating with the union and “will continue to bargain in good faith.”
“We are committed to reaching an agreement with NUHW that reflects our support and respect for the employees at Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital while ensuring the long-term sustainability of the high-level care we provide to our community,” Young said.
Young added that three more bargaining sessions are scheduled within the next two weeks, and some tentative agreements have been reached.
On May 23, 2023, the San Benito Health Care District Board filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, but a federal bankruptcy judge later dismissed the filing, finding that the district’s financial forecast was flawed, NUHW noted in a press release. The bankruptcy judge had also found that HHMH under-reported the district’s resources by $15 million.
Still, the district used the bankruptcy filing to cut health and retirement benefits as well as vacation time for workers, NUHW said. Workers lost all future pension contributions and two weeks of vacation time.
They were also forced into new health plans that cost an additional $1,500 per year in premium costs.
In the first year after the bankruptcy filing, full-time-equivalent positions at the hospital fell from 546.16 FTEs in 2023 to 504.66 FTEs, according to NUHW. At the same time, more than one-third of NUHW-represented workers reported having to work through their lunch breaks at least once a week to meet the needs of their patients.
The district is also proposing annual wage increases of only 2%, which would widen the gap between Hazel Hawkins and the nearest district hospital, Salinas Valley Health Medical Center, where workers are also represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, the union said.
“We’ve stayed at Hazel because this is our local hospital, and we want to be able to provide the same level of care that everyone in our community counts on,” Respiratory Therapist Valerie Aguinaldo said. “We know the hospital has the resources to do right by its caregivers, so we have the staffing levels we need to provide the best possible care to our patients.
“The bottom line is that the district wasn’t honest about its finances, and caregivers and patients have paid the price. Now it’s time to restore what should never have been taken away.”
