SF city downsizing slashes workers’ paychecks

The total number of employees laid off by the city since the summer budget cutbacks has been devilishly hard to determine. But beyond the numbers of people laid off, which was relatively low, we will uncover the true impact of the cuts on low- to medium-wage workers.

In September, we covered a rally at City Hall, where SEIU Local 1021 protested the 546 layoff notices that had been sent out to certified nurses’ assistants and clerical workers. During the heated afternoon, the protesters pounded on the door of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office and interrupted a Board of Supervisors meeting.

The union said the downsizing hurt women and minorities the most. They claim a pattern of discrimination against certain classes of workers, who already make less money.

The Newsom administration has said that the city pays its nurses and clerical staff more than comparable cities do, and that the layoffs were negotiated months ago.

Our goal with this reporting is to talk with the workers who have been laid off, like Carmen Rutheford, a certified nurses’ assistant at Laguna Honda Hospital. Rutherford has been issued a pink slip, but she will likely be a part of the 289 who are rehired as patient-care assistants at a 20 percent pay cut. The process is called “de-skilling.”

Rutheford is angry. “What is happening to me is inhumane,” Rutheford said. “We do the things that no one wants to talk about. We clean feces. I clean up puke and poop every day. Now they are telling us that what we do is not worth the money. That’s an insult.”

We have been reviewing to our conversations with workers and we would like to know more.

Along the way, we will lay out the total impact of citywide layoffs from the summer budget season.

COST: $600

All costs go to paying a freelance reporter and a multimedia journalist for their time working on these stories.