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I photographed a rally at UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay, where social workers and more than two hundred members of University Professional and Technical Employees Communications Workers of America Local 9119 (UPTE CWA 9119) demanded real safety protections from the University of California. The rally came two months after the fatal stabbing of UC social worker and UPTE member Alberto Rangel, and amid survey data showing 90 percent of UCSF campus social workers have faced physical, sexual, or verbal assault or threats on the job. Workers rallied, then marched on the boss to deliver a letter of demands to Chancellor Sam Hawgood’s office, calling on UC to implement common-sense safety measures, increase staffing, and end a two-tiered pay system that drives turnover and puts workers, patients, and communities at risk.
Connie Chan, San Francisco Supervisor, joined Supervisors Shamann Walton and Matt Dorsey at the rally in support of workers’ demands. “It shouldn’t take one of our workers’ deaths to raise awareness for a safe working environment,” Chan said.
Matias Campos, UPTE-CWA 9119 executive vice president, called out the university’s refusal to engage with frontline workers. “UCSF as a system has not taken us seriously and has refused to meet with us,” Campos said. “The mayor has been responsive. The city and public health [department] has been responsive. But not our own employer.”
Shamann Walton, San Francisco Supervisor, was one of three Board members to attend the rally and offer public support. Both he and Supervisor Chan said they had each called UCSF directly in recent months to press the issue.
Tia Blackburn, a clinical social worker at Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center’s HIV Clinic at Ward 86, has been on medical leave since the killing of Alberto Rangel, who was fatally stabbed by a patient weeks after staff raised concerns. Blackburn said her caseload had exceeded five hundred patients, a level at which adequate assessment becomes impossible. “I feel like this tragedy was preventable had different measures been taken,” she said.
Following the demonstration, workers marched across 16th Street to Mission Hall to deliver a demand letter to Sam Hawgood, the chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco. A UCSF spokesperson said a university representative accepted the letter on behalf of the chancellor, who was at a meeting elsewhere.
Julia Pascoe, UCSF social worker and UPTE member, delivered a letter of demands to a staff member from Labor and Employee Relations after Chancellor Sam Hawgood was unavailable to meet. “Their lack of urgency is disgusting,” said Pascoe. “We are clinicians who love our patients, and we expect more from our employer. We will not stop until our demands are met and until they meet with us.”