Staff at personal hospitals and dialysis clinics in Inglewood are poised to get a wage enhance, with a measure to spice up their minimal wage to $25 remaining forward as election outcomes continued to be tallied this week.
The wage measure was championed by the healthcare employees’ union SEIU-UHW, which has argued that pay will increase are vital to retaining employees who’ve felt devalued in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. The union has been hoping that native measures in L.A. County cities corresponding to Inglewood may pave the best way for a statewide enhance in wages.
“We’re thrilled that Inglewood voters acknowledge and worth the sacrifices made by important healthcare employees,” licensed nursing assistant Martha Alvarez mentioned in a press release launched by SEIU-UHW on Tuesday. “Elevating wages is just not solely truthful, however it is going to assist appeal to extra employees to Inglewood and assist sufferers get the care they want.”
The Inglewood measure, Measure HC, had garnered greater than 53% of the vote as of the newest tallies. In Duarte, nonetheless, an analogous measure backed by SEIU-UHW was faltering, with 63% voting no on Measure J within the outcomes that had been counted as of Monday afternoon.
Hospital teams and different opponents argued that the proposed will increase would unfairly single out some services and never others, creating inequities within the labor market. Additionally they warned that quickly rising pay may jeopardize some hospitals. After native officers voted for related hikes in Los Angeles, Downey and Lengthy Seaside, opponents together with the California Assn. of Hospitals and Well being Programs gathered signatures to pressure the measures to be placed on the poll as a substitute, placing them on ice till voters can resolve.
“Voters acknowledged the intense flaws in every of those measures with voters in Duarte showing to overwhelmingly reject Measure J, whereas Inglewood voters are at the moment supporting Measure HC by a slim margin, regardless of being probably the most progressive cities within the state,” Hospital Assn. of Southern California President George W. Greene mentioned in a press release.
Greene mentioned that his group helps continued conversations about employee compensation on the state or regional degree, however “deeply flawed ordinances thought-about city-by-city is unhealthy coverage and the improper strategy.”
SEIU-UHW pointed as a substitute to spending by their opponents, who had garnered over $1 million for his or her marketing campaign to fight the Duarte measure by late October, in accordance with marketing campaign filings.
The Inglewood and Duarte poll measures sought to cowl a variety of workers, together with safety guards, clerical employees, nursing assistants, aides, housekeepers, groundskeepers and others who work at privately run hospitals, psychiatric services, dialysis facilities and clinics which are a part of personal hospitals.
SEIU-UHW had estimated that the 2 measures would have an effect on practically 700 of their members, in addition to an unknown variety of employees who usually are not a part of the union. The Duarte measure would have coated employees on the most cancers therapy middle Metropolis of Hope; the Inglewood measure impacts these at Centinela Hospital Medical Heart and 7 dialysis clinics, in accordance with SEIU-UHW.