SACRAMENTO —
A secretive deal between a group of hospitals seeking to weaken seismic upgrades at medical centers and an influential union looking to increase the pay of employees collapsed on Tuesday, just days after it was made public.
The last-minute alliance between Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West and the California Hospital Assn. infuriated other unions, which accused the unlikely pair of making a backroom deal that skirted the legislative process and put patients, healthcare workers and communities at risk.
In a hospital association memo obtained by The Times, the group said the deal with SEIU-UHW came together quickly and followed years of stymied attempts to delay a state law that requires hospital buildings to have earthquake upgrades by 2030. Hospitals estimate that those upgrades will cost $100 billion, a tab they say is likely to result in closures across the state.
Before the deal emerged, the hospital association and SEIU-UHW had been locked in a fierce battle over raising the minimum wage in Los Angeles County for hospital workers. The agreement between the two would have required lawmakers to sign off on the deal before the end of the legislative session Aug. 31.
The California Hospital Assn. sought a seven-year delay to the 2030 standards and to limit the standards to hospital buildings that provide emergency services, according to a draft of the proposal obtained by The Times.
In exchange, unions would see the minimum...
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