Lawyers for the union representing UC Irvine Medical Center resident doctors will present their case this week to try to persuade a state mediator that first-year residents, fellows and doctors on rotation should be allowed to join the resident union.

UC Irvine Medical Center administrators are challenging the request by the union, the Patient and Physician Safety Association.

Administrators argue that the three groups of residents at the UC Irvine School of Medicine are not employees for purposes of collective bargaining under state law and thus, should not be allowed to be included in the Patient and Physician Safety Association union, which is an affiliate of the Committee of Interns and Residents, CIR/SEIU Healthcare. SEIU is Service Employees International Union, which counts janitors, security officers and lab technicians among its 2.1 million members.

The residents’ request will be decided by the Public Employment Relations Board’s hearing officer Ellen Wu, who is expected to rule in the fall.

A victory could bolster the newly-formed UC Irvine resident physicians group who want a collective voice in bargaining for pay and procedures in patient care. Residents typically earn about $50,000 a year and sometimes work 80 hours a week, the physician union says.

Although the Patient and Physician Safety Association is established and received the necessary signatures to form a union, it cannot be formally recognized by the Public Employment Relations Board until the board determines who can be included in the union.

Discussions to resolve that question prior to the hearing were unsuccessful, the union said.

UC Irvine resident physicians formed the Patient and Physician Safety Association in 2011. The union is trying to represent about 600 members comprised of resident physicians in all pay-scales, fellows and doctors on rotation. “Doctor on rotation” refers to physicians who work at multiple hospitals.

Erich Shiners, an attorney at Renne Sloan Holtzman’s Sakai, the law firm representing UC Irvine Medical Center, said administrators just want to make sure the appropriate people are included in the union.

Shiners urged PERB to uphold its previous ruling that doctors on rotation are not employees of a specific hospital.

The two parties met twice last week at the PERB (Public Employees Relations Board) office in Glendale and are scheduled to meet again later this week.

Lawyers for UC Irvine Medical Center administrators last week closed their case.

Khanh-Van Le-Bucklin. associate dean for Graduate Medical Education School of Medicine at UC Irvine, testified that new changes in the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, which is responsible for accrediting post medical doctorate programs, led to the new classification of first-year resident physicians as students rather than employees.

Le-Bucklin said the accreditation council has limited the amount of time first-year resident physicians can work and has increased their supervision. She said fellows should be classified as students because although fellows have finished medical training, they are studying a specialty, such as coronary care.

Lawyers for the Patient and Physician Safety Association union are expected to argue that first-year residents, fellows and doctors on rotation are still categorized as employees of the university, and work under the same conditions as other doctors.

Contact the writer: jpimentel@ocregister.com or 714-796-7977