In Riverside and Kern Counties in California, resident physicians took important steps in 2009 to have a stronger voice in their hospitals by organizing to become new chapters of CIR.
Resident leaders at Kern Medical Center in Bakersfield, CA reached out to CIR in the fall of 2009. Within nine days, a full 70 percent of the approximately 115 residents had signed cards stating that they wanted to be recognized as CIR.
Family Medicine residents Dr. Tiffany Pierce (left) and Dr. Adi Shamani
at the Administrative Building in Bakersfield, on the day of the vote by
the Kern County Board of Supervisors to recognize CIR.
Under California labor laws, workers can gain union recognition by having a majority of residents sign cards or petitions, so long as that petition is acknowledged by local government officials. On January 12, 2010, the Kern County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to recognize CIR/SEIU Healthcare as the union for the resident physicians. The residents planned to form a negotiating committee and start preparing for bargaining right away.
Meanwhile, residents at Riverside County Regional Medical Center (RCRMC) continued their campaign to get Riverside County to process their petition for recognition by lobbying elected officials and reaching out to the public for support.
For Halloween, resident doctors visited the county supervisors with a frightening message: the Inland Empire, which includes Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, is facing a severe doctor shortage, and if conditions don’t improve at RCRMC, it will only get worse.
Leading up to Christmas, residents delivered a basket of holiday cards to the members of the Board of Supervisors with variations on the message, “All I want for Christmas is recognition.”
These events are just the latest efforts in a campaign that has been over two years in the making. Since 2007, the housestaff at RCRMC — the county’s only public hospital — have fought to organize a CIR chapter. Through bargaining as CIR, they hope to make their salaries competitive with neighboring county hospitals, negotiate for affordable health benefits, and have a stronger voice in the hospital in order to better advocate for their patients. They also want to address other signs of disrespect, like having paychecks withheld if they fill out a timesheet incorrectly, or not having access to unexpired food during night shifts. The residents filed a petition in November 2007, but the county government has used a series of bureaucratic tactics to delay processing the petition.
In addition to their mobilizations, the residents are reaching out to the community and the public to tell their story and to warn about consequences of further delay. In October 2009, CIR launched a Web site,
www.cir-riverside.org.
“The housestaff are integral to the operation of the hospital,” said Dr. Raymond Chan, an Orthopedic Surgery resident. “It makes sense that we have a united voice in our hospital.”