Nearly 500 technical and professional employees at MarinHealth Medical Center have announced their intent to strike next week, along with 700 members of the California Nurses Association. The groups cite concerns over rising health care costs and what they describe as months of bad faith bargaining by hospital management.

The 24-hour unfair labor practice strike, organized by Teamsters Local 856, is scheduled to begin at 7 a.m. on Feb. 18 and would involve workers ranging from respiratory therapists and emergency department technicians to environmental services and food service staff. Like the nurses, their contract expired June 30, and they have been in contract negotiations for nearly a year.

Union leaders say negotiations have stalled largely over proposed changes to employee health insurance. According to the union, MarinHealth has proposed health care cost increases through UnitedHealthcare that could reach as much as $1,000 per month for some workers.

“If the health care is going to cost our members 5% to 6% of their wages, they’re not going to have an increase in wages on a new contract,” said Susanna Farber, vice president and chief negotiator for Teamsters Local 856. Farber said health care costs are fully covered now.

“MarinHealth has the ability to put out a request for competing bids for other health care providers,” she said. “They are telling us that they are not able to consider alternatives for some reason.”

“We want to be at work serving patients. But we also need the hospital to partner with us to find sustainable, affordable health care solutions for the workforce.”
Susanna Farber, Teamsters Local 856

MarinHealth did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.

“The dramatic cost increase will force health care professionals to choose between essentials like groceries or rent and providing health care for their families,” said Farber, adding that most of their members must commute from surrounding counties because they cannot afford to live in Marin County.

MarinHealth Medical Center employs about 2,000 workers overall. Several dozen workers in the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 39 have filed a notice that they will participate in a sympathy strike along with the technical workers.

Union representatives emphasized that the action is limited to 24 hours in hopes of encouraging renewed negotiations without significantly disrupting patient care.

“We want to be at work serving patients,” Farber said. “But we also need the hospital to partner with us to find sustainable, affordable health care solutions for the workforce.”

Hospital officials have notified the union that they will locking out striking members for an additional two days.

“I suspect they’ve engaged with some kind of contracting company to provide for some replacement workers, but I don’t think they’re going to be able to have 1,000 replacement workers,” said Farber.

Ruth Dusseault is an investigative reporter and multimedia journalist focused on environment and energy. Her position is supported by the California local news fellowship, a statewide initiative spearheaded by UC Berkeley aimed at supporting local news platforms. While a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (c’23), Ruth developed stories about the social and environmental circumstances of contaminated watersheds around the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. Her thesis explored rights of nature laws in small rural communities. She is a former assistant professor and artist in residence at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, and uses photography, film and digital storytelling to report on the engineered systems that undergird modern life.