LA MESA, Calif. (KGTV) -- Sharp HealthCare headed back to the bargaining table Wednesday for worker contract negotiations.
At the same time, it was round two for Sharp HealthCare workers hitting the picket line -- only this week it was outside Sharp Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa.
Members of the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) stated their demands for better pay and benefits stand firm.
However, there are new personal stories in the second round of picketing.
One man spoke about his 200-mile, round-trip commute to get to work every day. Another man said he was demonstrating for his fellow veterans working at Sharp.
Tony Napoli is a respiratory therapist who has been at Sharp Grossmont Hospital for five years. He headed straight to the picket line after his shift ended at 6 a.m., still in scrubs.
Napoli said after working for Sharp for five years, he thought he would have been able to move to San Diego by now to be closer to his job, but he's still commuting from Corona, in Riverside County.
"I spend $500-$700 a week," Napoli said. "The commute is 200 miles. I did some math, and in the five years that I've been working here, I've logged about 200,000 miles."
When asked why he stays at Sharp, Napoli responded, "Sharp is a fantastic hospital. We have an amazing group of people. We bonded together during the pandemic."
Chris Roland is another Sharp employee who hit the picket line on Wednesday, and he said he came to work for Sharp straight out of the Marine Corps.
Roland said he was not only rallying behind the overarching demands of their union, but he also wanted to fight for his fellow veteran coworkers.
"Particularly this year, our veteran employees, if you hit the 20 years, they didn't get anything. We got a lot of veteran employees who didn't get any raise at all recently," Roland said.
The hospital responded to Roland's claim and said, "When a contract is under negotiation, no changes to pay and benefits can be made because those are all bargaining topics."
Sharp also disputed the union's claims about retention and wages, stating it has one of the highest retention rates in the California hospital industry. The hospital said it also supported the new California law to pay $25 per hour as minimum wage to its employees.
Sharp HealthCare, in a statement to ABC 10News Wednesday morning, said: "Sharp is bargaining in good faith and we are not in a staffing crisis, as the union claims. The next bargaining session will take place today, by the way. Again, we have been actively bargaining for a contract, despite the union's claims."
Roland said he'll continue to protest, even if Sharp doesn't meet all of the union's demands Wednesday back at the bargaining table.
Roland said, "Regardless, we gotta do it. We gotta get the message out there."
This union has separate units at each of Sharp's location, and they're saying they want one contract, with one standard for care and working conditions across all of Sharp's locations.
However, the hospital said that by law, they will have to give each unit its own contract according to its hospital.
The union will picket Sharp's Chula Vista location next week and the Metropolitan campus the following week.
