On Monday evening, as San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie headed to a political event in the Marina, SEIU Local 1021 was still trying to figure out which of its members were included in the mayor’s list of 127 city and county workers it had “released from employment,” in the euphemistic language of the city’s disclosure to unions earlier that day.
These layoffs are the first wave of a total reduction of as many as 500 city jobs the mayor plans to cut over the next two months. According to SEIU 1021, which represents 16,000 city and county employees, all four clinical nurse specialists at Laguna Honda Hospital were given layoff notices. Jennie Smith-Camejo, a spokesperson for the union, told Gazetteer SF that the city’s ultimate aim is to close three different health clinics.
The layoffs, Smith-Camejo said, cut “across departments, and there are definitely some public health positions being affected that we know of.”
“We’re still trying to figure out exactly what’s going on.”
Smith-Camejo couldn’t identify the three impacted clinics Monday evening. On Tuesday, the mayor’s office referred inquiries to the city’s Department of Public Health, which didn’t immediately respond.
Clinical nurse specialists are responsible for the training and safety of other nurses, Smith-Camejo said, adding that they played an important role in the recent regulatory crisis at Laguna Honda. “It is very concerning that they are completely eliminating these positions there,” she said.
The layoffs target workers in 18 departments. The biggest cuts impact the Department of Public Health, City Administrator’s Office, Office of Economic and Workforce Development, Human Services Agency, and Police Department. In this first round of cuts, 62 of the laid off workers are represented by SEIU.
In December, the mayor’s office said the city’s expenditures are outpacing general fund revenues, creating an $936 million deficit through 2028. Lurie instructed departments to reduce spending by $400 million.
“Everyone is going to feel these cuts,” Lurie said at Gallery 308 at Fort Mason, where he was supporting a town hall held by District 2 Supervisor Stephen Sherrill. Lurie noted that, with the layoffs, the city is looking to save $100 million.
In “coming days,” the mayor said, it will be clear which departments will be hardest hit. Cuts of police officers are “not in the cards,” he said, deferring to Derrick Lew, the chief of the police department for specifics.
In a separate interview, Sherrill said civilian police department employees, not sworn officers, will be laid off.
The heads of each city department are in charge of deciding who gets laid off, Lurie told Gazetteer SF. “Our department heads are very capable of running their departments; I appreciate all the work that they put in.”
Last year, SEIU 1021 was able to stave off big job cuts, Smith-Camejo said. While the union was still trying to figure out who lost their jobs, this time around, the layoffs came as no surprise.
“The mayor had been talking about this, we knew this was on the table,” she said. “We also know that there could potentially be more coming.”
