SVMH workers to hold second strike if mediation fails.

After more than a year of negotiations and acrimony, as well as a one-day strike followed by what was effectively a two-day lockout, the administration and workers at the Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital continue to be at odds.

The two sides will meet with a state-appointed mediator on July 19 and 26. If mediation falls through the rank-and-file of the National Union of Healthcare Workers have voted for a three-day strike.

This comes after workers held a one-day strike on May 17 that cost SVMH $1.6 million to hire replacement workers flown in from across the country. Workers who missed their shifts during the strike lost the following two days of work as the hospital had a three-day contract with replacement workers.

"We are disappointed the Union asked its members to participate in a strike authorization vote, particularly when we haven't even started the new round of mediation," said the SVMH administration in a prepared statement.

The union, representing 700 workers from 90 job classifications including pharmacists, certified nursing assistants and maintenance workers, is pressing the administration to take out language that would allow subcontracting, which it sees as a threat to union jobs. 

Pharmacist Greg Sarratt, who has been at SVMH for 17 years, says departments like his are particularly vulnerable to having their work contracted out to lower paying third-party vendors.

The administration claims they would like the flexibility to subcontract specific tasks, not positions that are currently unionized. Furthermore, the hospital says the contract that expired last year was based on agreements made in the 1980s and that it's time to modernize the language.

The union is also demanding cost-of-living increases and is pushing back against what they call the fast-tracking of disciplinary actions and changes in paid time off.

Last week the NUHW posted a video highlighting the $37.7 million SVMH earned in profit in 2015 as well as the increased executive compensation in recent years.