Sixty-four healthcare workers at hospitals in Bakersfield, Calif., voted May 16 to join Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West.
The employees are clinical lab scientists at Memorial Hospital, Mercy Hospital Downtown and Mercy Hospital Southwest, all owned by San Francisco-based Dignity Health.
They join 15,000 Dignity Health workers who are already members of SEIU-UHW.
As union members, the employees will be able to help SEIU-UHW's campaign to fully fund Medi-Cal, California's Medicaid program, and can help the union's statewide ballot initiative that would limit hospital executive compensation to $450,000, the union said.