UAPD has submitted a request for bargaining in Santa Cruz County and has begun the process of selecting a negotiating team. This year’s bargaining will likely be contentious, as the doctors plan to push the County to do more to resolve its critical doctor shortage.
In the coming weeks, UAPD will also hold a meet and confer with management over their plan to create evening hours in the Emeline clinic. While there is now a volunteer interested in filling evening hours, the union’s concern is what will happen if no volunteers exist. There will also be a second Labor Management meeting about Avatar, the new EHR system on the mental-health side. At the last meeting, doctors listed dozens of problems with the system, and will soon assess how much progress has been made on resolving them.