Union workers at Watsonville Community Hospital are continuing months-long contract negotiations with the Pajaro Valley Healthcare District.
Yesterday, technicians, environmental service workers and others protested on a street corner outside the hospital. They called out low wages, increasing healthcare costs, and short-staffing.
Leticia Ornelas is a dietitian who’s worked at Watsonville Community Hospital for 35 years. She describes the challenges employees face.
“[We’re] having to stay over shifts because we cannot retain employees to stay here. They come and work six months and then they go somewhere else for more competitive wage or benefits,” she said.
Ornelas was raised in Watsonville. It’s her home, and she considers the hospital like family.
“We're just asking the hospital to be fair and be competitive with other union hospitals,” she said.
Hospital marketing and communications director Nancy Gere says they plan to address workers’ concerns, but the hospital is still recovering financially from the previous owners who declared bankruptcy in 2021.
“We have to really balance the needs of employees and the salaries, as well as our obligation to the community to remain financially sound so we can be open for generations to come,” she said.
Gere said the year the new management took over as a community-owned hospital, the hospital showed a $30 million loss. In 2023, the loss was around $13 million. Watsonville Community Hospital just hit break even this year.
Gere says renegotiating payments with insurance companies and expanding surgical services has helped boost revenue, but the hospital isn’t out of the woods yet.
“The hospital recognizes that in some areas we are not at the market rates for some of our positions,” Gere said, "and that's not where we want to be."
As of now, the employees don’t plan to strike, but neither party knows how long contract negotiations will take.
