Young doctors working 80-hour weeks earn nearly $45,000
Morgan Hill – With 80-hour work weeks and salaries working out to be less than $12 an hour, the 103 unionized residents at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center earned a hard-fought pay increase after the Santa Clara Board of Supervisors approved a new labor contract.
The new deal agreed to Monday guarantees a 4 percent boost to the $43,493 salary the county had previously paid its first-year interns, who are young doctors fresh out of medical school and looking to gain a foothold in their medical careers.
The union representing the county’s interns and residents says the wage increase was necessary to remain competitive in area with a high cost of living. And with Stanford University and Kaiser Permanente offering up to 10 percent more money in their residency programs, the county was having a hard time keeping up, said one union official.
“Over the past few years, the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center noticed it’s been harder to fill slots in its training programs,” said Amy Hall, the area director for the Committee of Interns and Residents. There are currently three residency programs offered at the 524-bed Santa Clara Valley Medical Center: Radiology, internal medicine and obstetrics/gynecology (OBGYN). The programs usually last three to five years and are necessary for training young doctors to become attending physicians.
The new contract expires in June 2009. It replaces a previous labor agreement that expired July 2. It prescribes three wage increases. All interns’ salaries will be increased in the first year of the contract by 4 percent. In the second year of the contract, interns’ salaries will be increased by another 7.5 percent. In the third year of the of the contract all salaries will be increased by about 3 percent.
The fiscal impact on the county during the first year of the contract is estimated to be about $221,000. Costs associated with the provisions of the second and third year of the new contract will be incorporated in the recommended budget for FY 2008 and FY 2009.
County spokeswoman Gwen Mitchell said the labor contract won’t have a huge affect on the county’s budget deficit because the costs were anticipated in the planning of the 2007 budget. Earlier this year the county faced a deficit of more than $160 million before balancing the budget.
“It’s not like we didn’t know we needed the labor agreement,” she said. Several other labor negotiations are pending. Negotiating teams for the county and the residents’ union – the Committee of Interns and Residents – began their talks early in the year but reached an impasse in May when the county backed out of a contract that included a 2 percent raise for hospital interns. The parties reached a tentative agreement on July 13 with the help of a state mediator.
Tony Burchyns covers Morgan Hill for the Times. Reach him at (408) 779-4106 ext. 201 or tb*******@mo*************.com
