Gathering simultaneously outside Harbor-UCLA and Los Angeles General Medical Centers, hundreds of Los Angeles County doctors met midday on April 3 to voice both their demands for a fair contract and their commitment to their hospitals and communities.
The dual unity breaks come on the heels of the doctors’ powerful contract campaign and narrowly-averted strike in 2022–a critical inflection point in a national wave of housestaff union action. After winning historic wage and benefits improvements in their previous fight, the LA County physicians are now demanding fair pay and other measures that will ensure that they can afford rent, child care, and other essentials during their training.
Grappling with severe understaffing and under-resourcing in lifeline public hospitals for LA, the physicians experience severe financial stress while overworking themselves to deliver the best possible care to their communities. At the April unity breaks, they spoke to their challenges affording to move to LA as interns, driving home after a 24-hour call shift, budgeting for child care, and more, as the cost of living in LA rapidly rises. County negotiators, meanwhile, have told the physicians they have 0% budgeted for cost-of-living increases.
The doctors say that, as in 2022, their contract fight is about ensuring that hospital and county leadership prioritize healthcare workers and the communities who rely on LAC hospitals. LA County residents and fellows largely treat patients facing high barriers to care, with complex issues resulting from structural inequality in health, including many houseless and housing insecure patients, immigrants and refugees, and working class communities of color.
In a city with constantly widening inequality, now accelerated by the wildfires, it’s more important than ever to ensure that the public-sector workers dedicated to community health are able to care for themselves and come into work rested.
“If we want doctors who reflect the diverse patient population of Los Angeles, then residency must be made accessible to people who don’t have the generational wealth that this current system of medical training requires,” said CIR Regional Vice President Dr. Andrea Soto López.
With hospital negotiators still offering insulting wage increases, CIR physicians will continue to fight for a contract that supports current doctors and that will help LAC attract new, talented physicians who reflect the diversity of LA.
