2,000 Healthcare Workers at Sharp’s San Diego Campus Vote to Unionize

Healthcare workers at five more Sharp HealthCare sites in San Diego County have voted to join SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), officials said Thursday.

They described the victory as “overwhelming,” with 70% of the workers who voted supported joining SEIU-UHW. a union of more than 100,000 healthcare members across California.

“Now that we’re union we’ll be able to stand up and speak up for our patients and this community,” said Cheryl Okuboye, a licensed psychiatric technician at Sharp Mesa Vista Hospital. “With this victory, we’ll have the strength to win safer staffing, better patient care and good jobs across Sharp.”

The election, which took place over two days beginning Tuesday, covers over 2,000 frontline workers at Sharp Memorial Hospital, Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women & Newborns, Sharp Mesa Vista Hospital, Sharp Allison deRose Rehabilitation Center and James S. Brown Pavilion, all in Kearny Mesa.

These workers now join contract bargaining with over 2,700 workers at Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center, Sharp Grossmont Hospital and Sharp HospiceCare, who also voted recently to join SEIU-UHW.

“San Diego has become the epicenter of unionization in the state, even the country,” said Arnold Aradanas, a respiratory care practitioner at Sharp Memorial. “It makes perfect sense — San Diego is the most expensive city in the nation. Many healthcare workers can’t afford to live in this community and are struggling to provide for our families because our wages keep falling further and further behind.”

The vote applies to a variety of job classes, according to SEIU-UHW, including certified nursing assistants, pharmacy technicians, environmental service workers, licensed vocational nurses, MRI, radiologic and surgical technologists, ultrasound technicians, rehabilitation aides and numerous others.

This election is part of a wave of healthcare unionization in the San Diego area. In addition to thousands of workers across Sharp HealthCare who voted to join SEIU-UHW, 550 Planned Parenthood workers and nearly 300 dialysis workers in the region have done so.

Sharp Healthcare recorded net income of over $1.17 billion in 2020-2021, according to its financial disclosures, SEIU-UHW said.