Despite delays and confusion surrounding a new minimum wage law for California's lowest-paid health workers, some employers have begun raising pay ahead of the state's deadline.
Health care workers at San Bernardino County clinics will get a raise this month even though Newsom and lawmakers delayed the mandated wage increase until October. So will workers at University of California health systems, which announced in May that it would comply with the law on its original timeline.
Chas Kelley, a clinical nursing assistant at a clinic operated by San Bernardino County, will see his new wage hike with his next check. His pay is increasing $2 to about $23 an hour.
The county didn't have to grant the raise this month. His union contract does not expire until 2027, and the deadline for the new law is still several months out. But Kelley's union, Teamsters Local 1932, pressed San Bernardino County to implement the raises ahead of state deadline.
The pay bump means Kelley will have more money for his mortgage, car payment and car insurance.
"We have to put a roof over our heads. We've got to put food on the table. We've got to ensure that we've got transportation to and from work," said Kelley, who often picks up extra shifts at an urgent care clinic on weekends.
Newsom set health care workers on a path to a minimum wage of $25 an hour when he signed the law, Senate Bill 525, last October. It has confused workers because the pace of the raises depend where someone works, and it exempts certain facilities entirely.
Looking for ways to alleviate the state's budget deficit, Newsom and lawmakers last month agreed to push back the deadline to at least Oct. 15.
Nonetheless, Teamster leaders said about 1,000 of their members who work for San Bernardino County will see a raise now. Housekeeping and linen workers, who are among the lowest paid, will get $18 an hour. That's $2 an hour more than the statewide minimum wage.
Teresa Preciado hopes the law will help her department retain workers. Preciado is an occupational therapy assistant at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, a hospital operated by San Bernardino County.
Preciado said often young health workers start their careers at public hospitals, get some experience and then leave for better-paying positions in the private sector.
"We're kind of like this stepping stone, like people come in and think 'hey a hospital job would look great on my resume,' and they don't stay," Preciado said. "That happens, unfortunately, and it kind of just affects the operations of the hospital."
California unions lobbied for minimum wage hike
The labor union SEIU California spearheaded the push for the minimum wage law after years of campaigning for higher wages at the local level and after taking on dialysis companies in failed ballot initiatives.
Across the state, about 426,000 California health workers are projected to benefit from the law, according to estimates from the Labor Center at UC Berkeley. On average, these workers will earn about $6,400 more a year, research shows.
The law could indirectly benefit other workers since employers may find they have to pay more to attract and retain employees. San Bernardino County cited wanting to remain competitive for implementing the minimum wage increase ahead of the state deadline.
Not all health workers get a raise
Some employers were already moving in that direction. Last year, the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions secured a labor agreement that boosted the minimum wage for employees there to $25 per hour.
"Even without the law, many health care employers were providing or thinking of offering increases that are greater than seen historically to address the recruitment and retention." said Laurel Lucia, health care program director at the UC Berkeley Labor Center. "But if we didn't have this (law), wage increases probably wouldn't occur at the same level or systematically."
That's because it is labor unions that usually push for wage hikes on behalf of their members. In California, only about 18% of workers have a union contract. The health care minimum wage, Lucia said, helps level the field for health workers who do not benefit from labor negotiations.
Not all health workers get a raise
As the law slowly begins to roll out, workers are beginning to understand that some of them won't see $25 perhaps until 2033. Others are learning that their workplaces are exempt, meaning they won't be getting a raise at all, at least not because of this law.
Some workers who have reached out to CalMatters with questions about the law have expressed disappointment in recently learning from their employers that they are not eligible for a pay increase.
For example, minimum wage employees at small private practices or doctor groups with 24 or fewer doctors are excluded — the doctors' lobby successfully lobbied for small practices to be exempt when the law was being crafted.
Researchers at the UC Berkeley Labor Center estimate that about 70,000 low wage workers are employed by medical groups with fewer than 25 physicians and therefore excluded from the law.
The law also excludes about another 70,000 workers at stand-alone nursing homes. That's it will be included only when the state sets a separate standard saying how much of nursing homes' revenue must be spent on patient care. Lawmakers are pondering a bill, Assembly Bill 1537, that would set that standard. If it becomes law, it will close that gap for nursing home workers.
Robert Gonzalez, communication coordinator for Teamsters Local 1932, said once it was law, workers found the pay raises are incremental and not for all. "I think the way that it was publicized," he said, "was different than how it actually went into action."
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