LOS ANGELES – Healthcare workers across four Prime Healthcare facilities in Southern California will launch an unfair labor practice strike on Monday, October 9th at 7 a.m. as Prime Healthcare management threatens and intimidates workers, and refuses to bargain in good faith to fix unsafe working and patient care conditions caused by the short-staffing crisis.

The unfair labor practice strike at Prime Healthcare comes days after frontline healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente engaged in a three-day strike.

The strike at Prime Healthcare will run from October 9-13 at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood, Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood, Garden Grove Hospital and Medical Center, and Encino Hospital Medical Center if progress is not made in negotiations between Prime executives and frontline healthcare workers. At St. Francis Medical Center, registered nurses will join other healthcare workers for the weeklong strike.

“We are calling on Prime Healthcare to stop their unfair labor practices, bargain in good faith, and listen to the frontline healthcare workers that this community depends on,” said Bernie Espinoza, an Ultrasound Tech at Prime Garden Grove Hospital. “Staffing has been so critically low that many caregivers have left. The remaining workers are stretched thin and rushed. We’re forced to take on more patients with less staff, which leaves much less time for quality one-on-one patient care,”

In 2021, Prime Healthcare Services and the Prime Healthcare Foundation made more than $263 million in profits from its California facilities. Prime operates healthcare facilities in 14 states nationwide.

Approximately 1,800 Prime Healthcare employees are members of SEIU United Healthcare Workers West at four hospitals. They work in various jobs, including licensed vocational nurses, certified nursing assistants, medical assistants, emergency room, radiology, and respiratory techs, and many other fields.