UC nurses and staff tell regents staffing, contract and payroll problems are harming patients

At a public comment session at the University of California Board of Regents Health Services Committee, nurses, union representatives and frontline staff described staffing shortages, contract disputes and payroll errors they say are harming patient care across UC medical centers.

Speakers urged UC leadership to resolve ongoing bargaining disputes, restore stable staffing, fix the MyTime payroll system and reverse staffing practices that place nurses unfamiliar with specialty units into high-acuity care. The speakers said those changes are urgent to protect patients and staff safety.

"The transition in July was a complete disaster, and nurses are continuing to experience harm due to the university's lack of transparency," said Ina Gage, an RN, chief nurse representative at Children's Hospital Oakland and a member of this year's UC bargaining team representing 25,000 nurses statewide. "Many nurses have also been without a paycheck for months."

Several commenters linked poor staffing to patient risk. "We have flow pool run units that are unsafe," said Maggie Ming, a float pool critical care nurse at UCSF Parnassus. Ming asked the regents to end the hiring freeze and to assign core staff to those units so nurses who float in receive orientation and supervision.

Nurses and staff also described payroll and timekeeping failures after UC adopted the MyTime system. "MyTime ... has been an absolute disaster," said Shelly Pepper, an oncology infusion nurse at UCSF Mission Bay. Pepper said accrual balances were transferred incorrectly or deleted, employees on leave were paid incorrectly, and the vendor reduced its support staff after contract changes, leaving few on-site super users to resolve problems.

Union representatives and staff researchers described high vacancy rates and recruitment challenges. "Vacancies are three times higher than pre-pandemic," said Cheyenne Dean, a staff research associate and UPTI co‑chair, citing data the union provided to the regents. Dean and others said understaffing was affecting clinical care, research continuity and patient access to specialized treatments.

Speakers included unit-level nurses at UCSF Parnassus, Mount Zion and Mission Bay, representatives of the California Nurses Association and other unions, and staff from research and clinical services. Commenters described repeated unresolved tickets to HR or payroll and said bargaining has not produced agreements to protect established nursing practices or continuity of benefits.

The public comments were discussion and appeals to the regents; no formal motions or votes were taken during the open public comment period. Speakers asked the committee to ensure prompt resolution of pay issues, prioritize safe staffing and bargain in good faith to restore prior contract protections.

Several speakers suggested specific remedies — ending the hiring freeze, restoring unit-specific staffing and orientation for float nurses, fixing data and access problems in MyTime, and reopening certain bargaining positions — but none of those requests were recorded as formal directions from the committee during the public session.

The comments come amid broader UC system bargaining with nurses and staff and follow recent hospital integrations and operational transitions at UCSF and other UC-affiliated facilities. The committee adjourned the open session and moved to closed session after the public comment period; the regents did not announce public outcomes tied to the requests made during comment.

Regents did not directly respond to the detailed requests during the public comment period, so it remains unclear which, if any, of the specific operational fixes or bargaining positions will be adopted or when payroll and staffing problems will be resolved.