Keck-employed housestaff ratify contract with unanimous vote


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Residents hold a protest banner at Keck graduation
Frustrated with what they deemed slow movement at the bargaining table, KSOM residents handed out fliers at KSOM’s commencement ceremony last month. (Morgan Currier)

Following more than six months of bargaining, Los Angeles General residents, fellows and interns reached a contract with the Keck School of Medicine. The Committee of Interns and Residents, the union representing the housestaff since last May, announced Wednesday that the contract was settled with a unanimous ratification vote the same day.

The contract includes salary increases across the board, a $10,000 annual housing allowance, and six weeks of paid parental and family leave. The housestaff also won a $1,400 annual education stipend to pay for expenses like electronics, four weeks of vacation along with a winter recess, better payouts upon termination and reimbursement for required licenses. New “Just Cause” protections stipulated in the contract will prevent arbitrary or unfair disciplining or termination. 

Housestaff had been negotiating a contract with KSOM since October in hopes of achieving equal pay and benefits to their L.A. County-employed colleagues. Some 90 residents in the L.A. General program are paid by KSOM, while 900 others are paid by L.A. County. Both groups work the same jobs and rotate shifts at the same hospitals, but — prior to the new contract — the KSOM-employed residents received an average of $10,000 less in pay and benefits than those employed by L.A. County.

The KSOM-employed residents hoped their first-ever contract would change that disparity, and it did. KSOM benefits and pay are now comparable to those provided by L.A. County.

Housestaff won big on a side agreement about retro-pay. KSOM agreed to pay back the difference between its employees’ salaries and housing allowances and those paid to L.A. County-employed residents starting July of last year. KSOM-employed housestaff received a housing allowance of $6,000 this year while L.A. County housestaff got $10,000, so KSOM will pay $4,000 back to each of its residents. 

Based on retro-pay amounts for the seven post-graduate year levels in the program, KSOM will pay out an estimated $641,950. Payments range from the $5,421.15 that PGY1-level residents will earn back to the $8,277.31 that PGY7-level residents will receive. 

The retro-pay agreement is in line with the Unfair Labor Practice charge KSOM-employed housestaff and CIR filed in November. The charge alleged that KSOM’s resistance to matching its residents’ salaries to L.A. County’s was unjust. 

Frustrated with what they deemed slow movement at the bargaining table, KSOM residents took action several times since they began negotiations to put pressure on their employer. KSOM-employed housestaff and supporters demonstrated at KSOM’s Match Day in March to gain visibility among incoming residents. They also handed out fliers at KSOM’s commencement ceremony last month. 

In a statement to the Daily Trojan Friday, the University said it was pleased with the “fair, equitable and beneficial” agreement residents, interns and fellows reached with KSOM. 

“The deal we reached matches [L.A. County] trainee salaries and housing stipends, including for the 2022-2023 program year, while providing KSOM-employed interns, residents and fellows the same exemplary employment benefits that are afforded to all USC employees,” the statement read.

This article was updated at 11:20 a.m. on June 19 with a statement from the University regarding the settled contract agreement.