SAN JOSE — Santa Clara County is proceeding with the purchase of O’Connor Hospital in San Jose and Saint Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy, despite uncertainty generated by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s efforts to block the sale and a recent vote by nurses at the two hospitals to authorize a strike.
The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved funding for the salaries and benefits of the hospitals’ employees and rose a spending cap on legal expenses related to acquiring the facilities to $2.05 million.
“We are planning on the transition to occur on [Feb] 28 and [March] 1,” Smith County CEO Jeff Smith told the board, noting the nurses’ strike vote and the attorney general’s efforts to block the sale are two “significant potential impediments.”
On Feb. 22, a federal district court judge is set to consider a request by Becerra to temporarily block the sale pending his appeal. The request comes after a bankruptcy court rejected Becerra’s request to stop the sale and ruled he doesn’t have authority over the deal.
Becerra wants to block the sale until the county agrees to conditions that his predecessor, former attorney general and U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, imposed on the hospitals in 2015 to ensure changes in the hospital system’s structure and financial backers would not affect the level of care the safety-net hospitals have provided to the community.
The county has argued that other state laws and regulations require it to provide the same or higher levels of health care than the conditions outlined by the attorney general, making them redundant or legally non-applicable to the county.
Nurses from O’Connor and St. Louise filled the board chambers Tuesday morning calling on supervisors to allow the California Nurses Association (CNA) to continue representing them rather than the county’s existing union, the Registered Nurses Professional Association (RNPA).
More than 90 percent of nurses from O’Connor and St. Louise voted last week to authorize a strike, citing high turnover and lower wages paid to nurses represented by the county’s current union, according to a press release by the California Nurses Association (CNA).
The strike was also motivated by concerns that the county hasn’t agreed to the attorney general’s conditions, which include requirements that the facilities continue to operate as acute care hospitals with emergency services, according to the CNA press release.
Some nurses also said their job offers from the county were rescinded without explanation.
It’s unclear how a nurses’ strike would affect the sale or future operation of the facilities.
According to the CNA, the nurses’ vote authorizes a strike after the county takeover.
Smith told the board the county “has no unilateral authority” to recognize the CNA and new nurses who are hired into the county are required to join the RNPA. There is a separate labor process for considering changes in representation, he said.
He called the strike “confusing” because any nurses hired by the county would be RNPA members, not CNA members. “So we think any threat of a strike would be a wildcat strike,” Smith said, referring to unofficial strikes that are not authorized by union leadership. “We are trying to resolve that in an amicable way.”
The CNA has also filed a complaint with the Public Employment Relations Board against the county for unfair labor practices.
“What the county has focused on is making the transition as smooth as possible for the county, and not the employees and patients in the community,” said Andrew Prediletto, a collective bargaining director for the CNA.
A speaker also raised concerns about janitorial and kitchen staff at the hospitals not being offered employment at the new hospitals.
Supervisor Cindy Chavez asked Smith if the county excluded certain jobs from employment.
“There were some mistakes in offers being sent to individuals who were not intended to be offered positions for various personnel reasons,” Smith said. “But there is no decision made based on [job] classification or anything like that.”
O’Connor and St. Louise hospitals are being sold after their nonprofit owner, Verity Health System, filed for bankruptcy in August.
A Southern California-based company, KPC Group, has offered $610 million to buy four other Verity hospitals, including two local hospitals, Seton Medical Center in Daly City and Seton Coastside in Moss Beach.
Meanwhile, Silicon Valley Medical Development, an affiliate of El Camino Hospital, says it plans to buy five local medical clinics owned by the Verity Medical Foundation.
Verity owns eight clinics in Santa Clara County, which include Good Samaritan Clinic, McKee Clinic, Willow Glen Clinic,O’Connor General Surgery and O’Connor Primary Care Clinic in San Jose; Gilroy Primary Care, Morgan Hill Medical Associates, and Morgan Hill Pediatrics.
Verity declined to comment on whether the clinics will be closed, but in a Jan. 25 letter to employees, the company said the Verity Medical Foundation “will permanently cease its operation” of the clinics and layoffs are likely to begin starting March 31.
A week after that letter, employees received an e-mail urging them to reapply for their positions with Silicon Valley Medical Development, according to Sean Wherley, spokesman for SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW). Of the 180 SEIU workers who would be affected, nearly half are older than 50 and include clerical employees, medical assistants, patient service representatives medical records clerks and others, he added.
Clinic employees plan to attend a meeting of the El Camino Hospital Board of Directors on Wednesday to urge the board to protect their jobs, according to an SEIU press release.
Silicon Valley Medical Development has not identified which of the eight Verity clinics it intends to purchase. According to SVMD spokeswoman Kris Naidl, the names of the clinics will be released after a board meeting Wednesday.
In a news release Saturday, SVMD President Bruce Harrison said if its offer is approved by the bankruptcy court, SVMD would lease the five clinic locations and enter into employment agreements with existing physicians.
Contact Thy Vo at 408-200-1055 or tvo@bayareanewsgroup.com.
