Monday, March 16, dozens of San Francisco Department of Public Health employees from SEIU 1021, IFPTE Local 21, and IOUE Local 39 flooded the San Francisco Health Commission meeting at City Hall. During public comment, they urged commissioners and SFDPH Director Daniel Tsai to do everything in their power to avoid the recently announced 95 layoffs.

Many pointed to the City’s recovery of the $120 million being withheld in the litigation fund for the Airbnb lawsuit, which was settled this month for $0.

“For me as a public health nurse, I’m on the ground every day,” said SEIU 1021 member Daniela Vargas. ”I’m not just a clinician and someone who sees what’s happening on the ground, I have a Master’s degree in public health and am about to have a doctoral degree. I know this to be my life’s work. So I do know that when you look at budgetary cuts, it will immediately affect the people I serve—mothers and children, folks who identify as Black, brown, and Indigenous people here in San Francisco.

“Right now you’re in these positions, in a couple of years you won’t be. The people who will still be here are people like me, who will still be serving the people here in San Francisco. And I will see the after effects of the cuts and layoffs that come for my colleagues. When we don’t have enough people to serve like me, we don’t have a strong safety net, which means people will slip through the cracks and won’t get good quality care.”

“We’re already experiencing significant shortages in the direct care workforce,” said SEIU 1021 Executive Board member Debbie Dobson, a certified nursing assistant at Laguna Honda Hospital who has worked for SFDPH for 28 years. ”Laguna Honda exists to care for residents who have no one else able to care for them and can’t care for themselves. Our frontline staff are the hands that wash, wipe, feed, dress, comfort and administer medications to these human beings, these mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, grandparents, who are no longer able to take care of themselves.

“Frontline staff are deeply committed to providing safe, high-quality care to our residents. Sudden staffing reductions risk compromising service delivery, workload balance, resident safety. Use the Airbnb money that we got back, and if you do have to make reductions, start at the top rather than the direct care workforce. We cannot afford to cut the hands that effectively serve as the hands of our residents. Chop from the top.”

Mayor Lurie’s administration announced earlier this month that it is requiring City departments to cut 500 full-time positions, including 95 from SFDPH, due to the city’s budget deficit. A large part of the deficit is due to the Medicaid cuts from Trump’s HR 1 (the so-called “big beautiful bill” that is decimating essential public services and threatening healthcare for millions nationwide). SEIU 1021, along with a coalition of labor and community groups, is working hard to make sure SF voters pass Proposition D in the June primary election to put $300 million back into the general fund to protect services, including public health, through a small tax on the largest corporations doing business in SF that represents only a fraction of what those corporations are saving through the Trump tax cuts.