Health sector employees in California, in the United States, would benefit from an agreement on salary improvements. Know what it is, who it would apply to first, and which groups will have to wait longer.
This is an amended legislative proposal that has the support of both labor and employer groups. The sector is estimated to have 455,000 healthcare employees, but the project will exclude doctors and nurses.
“Everyone in healthcare understands that we have a workforce crisis and that wages are the essential prerequisite for any solution“Tia Orr, executive director of the International Union of Service Employees Californiasponsor of the bill.
He added that “With this increase, more workers will join and remain in the health care workforce, and Californians will be safer and better served as a result.yes.”
The proposal comes at a time when hospitals are already suffering the financial consequences of years spent fighting the pandemic.
HOW MUCH WILL THE MINIMUM WAGE BE FOR THE HEALTH SECTOR IN CALIFORNIA?
The new agreement offers health care workers, except doctors and nurses, a minimum wage of $25 an hour. The measure also offers an incentive to their employers: a 10-year moratorium on local measures that aim to increase compensation for medical workers.
The bill would also require that all salaried workers who are exempt from overtime pay have a monthly income of at least 150% of the minimum wage for health care workers, that is, US$78,000 per year.
WHO WOULD BENEFIT THE LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL TO INCREASE THE MINIMUM WAGE?
If the legislative project is approved, which proposes raising the minimum wage to US$25 for public sector workers, workers would benefit from:
- Intensive care hospitals
- Psychiatric hospitals
- Medical consultants
- Clinics
- Mental health centers
- Residential care centers
SALARY SCHEDULE
The application of the minimum wage increase to US$25 per hour depends on where you work. Rural hospital employees, for example, would have to wait 10 years to reach the $25 per hour rate.
Next, according to the updated bill text, the wage increase would be implemented in the following ways:
- Dialysis clinics and large health systems with more than 10,000 workers would pay a minimum wage of $23 an hour in 2024. The payment would rise to $24 in 2025; already 25 dollars in 2026.
- Hospitals with a high mix of Medi-Cal and Medicare patients, as well as independent rural hospitals, would have to pay workers $18 an hour in 2024. That rate would increase 3.5% annually to reach $25 in 2033.
- Community clinics would begin the wage increase at US$21 per hour in 2024, increasing to US$22 in 2026; and US$25 in 2027.
- Other health care employers would raise their minimum wage to $21 an hour in 2024; to US$23, in 2026; already US$25 by 2028.