Hundreds of employees with the Tenderloin Housing Clinic (THC), one of the largest providers of supportive housing in San Francisco, went on a one-day strike Wednesday in a bid for higher pay.
The case managers, janitors and desk and maintenance staff that keep the clinic’s single-residency occupancy (SRO) hotels running said they had reached a breaking point after eight months of contract negotiations, according to SEIU Local 1021, the union representing them.
As demonstrators stood on the picket line Wednesday, Mayor London Breed signed a $14 billion two-year budget that includes funding for modest pay raises for some city-funded nonprofit employees — a bump that many workers argue still falls far short of what they need to make a living wage.
Hattie Patterson, who has worked as a desk clerk for nine years at the Vincent Hotel, said she currently makes $19 an hour, and worries her wage won’t rise at all under the current deal. She said she needs to make at least $21 an hour — which is the upper limit of the city’s proposed new pay scale for workers like her.
“We just ask them for a decent wage … so that way everyone will get a raise. No one would be left out. That’s what we’re fighting for,” said Patterson, as she stood on the picket line.
![Striking workers on a street hold signs that say 'T.H.C Greedy' and 'Living Wage Now'](https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/07/Image-from-iOS.jpg)
Some workers are also calling on the city to make permanent the $5 an hour hazard-pay increase they were offered at the beginning of the pandemic, arguing that the physical and mental health risks of the job remain high.