A new state bill introduced Tuesday would require health care companies to pay front-line workers an additional $5 an hour as compensation for difficult working conditions during the pandemic.
Assembly Bill 650, authored by Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, would require medical institutions with more than 100 employees to pay all front-line health care staff a quarterly bonus equivalent to $5 an hour in 2022.
The legislation is intended to increase worker retention and address burnout that many workers are feeling one year into the pandemic.
That may benefit health care workers like Gabriel Montoya, an EMT in Downey, who recalled two colleagues whose family members were admitted to his hospital with COVID-19.
"So they’re downstairs and they’re doing the work for patients, and upstairs they had two family members in ICU, both of whom passed away," Montoya says.
Muratsuchi said he introduced his bill because "these health care workers have been absolutely heroic for the last year, this is the right thing to do."
Jan Emerson-Shea of the California Hospital Association says hospitals are always looking at ways to improve retention. In 2020, many hospitals did offer extra shift pay, temporary housing and child care to support workers through the pandemic, she says.
"It's not just the pay, it's so many other things that help an individual decide whether they want to stay with their job or not," Emerson-Shea said.
Murataschi said health care workers ""went into a dangerous workplace on a daily basis, often with inadequate protective equipment, lack of staff support, long work hours with few breaks, in order to take care of others and save lives."
Union supporters of the bill point out that many health care companies made billions in profits in 2020, so some of that money should be set aside for workers, they say.
More on the story from the Mercury News.