LOS ANGELES — Around 426,000 California health care workers will see an increase in their minimum wages by way of a law signed over a year ago by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Under the new law, minimum wages for health care workers will rise to between $18 and $23 per hour, depending on their workplace. Some workers could see wages as high as $25 per hour in the coming years.
One such worker, longtime dialysis technician Eva Rosario, works two dialysis technician jobs to make ends meet.
“Living in California is so expensive on a daily basis," Rosario said. "You will choose to buy groceries or to buy clothes for your kids."
Her duties include monitoring machines, checking patients’ vital signs and providing comfort during what can be an uncomfortable medical process. Having recently undergone cancer treatment herself, Rosario knows firsthand what it’s like to be a patient.
“It’s so important for our patients to give them our best," Rosario said. "Understaffed and not enough pay — we cannot survive.”
Health care workers across the state have been under immense pressure since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Renée Saldaña, press secretary for SEIU, a union representing over 100,000 California health care workers.
“They just felt incredibly burnt out, tired, traumatized after everything they’d been through," Saldaña explained. "Their wages just weren’t keeping up with the high cost of living here in California. Many of them were thinking about leaving their jobs. Even within our own union, we had many healthcare workers working 2 or 3 jobs.”
She said the new law will help address these concerns, raising the current $16 minimum wage for health care workers in stages. Starting Wednesday, the new minimum wage will be between $18 and $23 per hour, with plans to increase to $25 by 2026.
“We are also hoping that the $25 minimum wage will help push up salaries for health care workers across the state, so that they eventually get to a place where they don’t have to work two or three jobs,” the SEIU representative added.
For Rosario, the law means her hourly wage will increase to $25.75 — an average of about a dollar-per-year raise since she began her job a decade ago.
Despite working through the challenges of COVID-19, battling cancer and juggling multiple jobs, Rosario remains committed to her work and her patients.
“I love my patients. So I’m there for them," Rosario said. "Hopefully, I’ll be there for another ten years or 15 years, if it’s possible."