‘They don’t seem to care about our patients’: San Jose hospital is losing critical workers

The workers charged with keeping critical medical equipment online at a Santa Clara County-owned hospital are about to be out of the job — and hospital staff fear patients could pay the price.

The 17 engineers at O’Connor Hospital in San Jose are members of the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 39. But last month, they learned their positions will be replaced with workers from Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 521 — the public-sector powerhouse whose membership includes roughly 40,000 city, county and nonprofit workers. The county has been urging the engineers to join SEIU for years, but they have declined, saying their existing contract gives them better benefits than what SEIU could offer. Now the county is forcing the issue, and has said it will stop working with the engineers on Sept. 30.