Laid-off UCSF tech workers allege discrimination in suit

System architect Audrey Hatten-Milholin (left), communication engineer Robert Harrison and systems administrator Kurt Ho speak at a news conference where their lawsuit against UCSF was announced. System architect Audrey Hatten-Milholin (left), communication engineer Robert Harrison and systems administrator Kurt Ho speak at a news conference where their lawsuit against UCSF was announced. Photo: D. Ross Cameron, Special To The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: D. Ross Cameron, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close Laid-off UCSF tech workers allege discrimination in suit 1 / 7 Back to Gallery

It was bad enough for 80 tech workers at UCSF Medical Center to learn in July that they were being laid off at the end of February. It got even worse when they were told one of their last jobs would be to train their replacements, a group of young men from India.

“It was a little bit awkward training them to take over our jobs,” Kurt Ho, 57, of Walnut Creek said Wednesday as lawyers announced a discrimination lawsuit on behalf of 10 workers who received layoff notices. “The university is making a big mistake just to save money.”

This is the first time a U.S. university has outsourced the jobs of permanent employees to India, said Gary Gwilliam, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. While outsourcing employment abroad isn’t illegal by itself, he said, UCSF’s hiring of a group of uniformly young male workers from India runs afoul of laws forbidding bias based on national origin, gender, age and race.

“They can’t substitute a diverse workforce,” Gwilliam said. He said 49 of the laid-off workers are UC employees — the others are contractors — and 48 of the 49 employees are 40 years old or older, the age protected from discriminatory hiring by federal law.

The university denied violating any laws and said it would save more than $30 million over five years with the replacement workers.

“Given the fiscal challenges facing academic medicine, and the ability of outside vendors to provide high-quality IT services, UCSF’s review concluded that it was more economical and secure to partner with specialized vendors on those aspects of information technology that do not require close interaction with research, patient care or education,” the university said.

The current workers perform various information technology jobs at the medical center. Their replacements come from an Indian IT company, HCL Technologies.

Ho and Gwilliam said they have been told 80 percent of the replacement workers, after their training, will return to India and work from there. And despite the university’s assertion that the IT jobs do not require “close interaction” with patient care, Ho said he and his co-workers have a personal connection with the patients they serve.

“We’re talking about people’s lives here,” Ho said. “We provide way beyond IT functions. We care about patients.”

For those working in India, he said, “there’s no relationship.”

Robert Harrison, a communication engineer at UCSF, agreed.

“You can’t do what we’re doing from overseas,” he said, recalling the many times he has met with patients, doctors and nurses to get their phones and computers working properly.

Also, electronic systems will be more vulnerable to hacking when workers are overseas, said Harrison, 57, of Richmond. “Private medical histories are going to be hacked more freely.”

Ho, who works as a systems administrator on the night shift, came to UCSF a year ago after almost 20 years as an IT employee with T.Y. Lin, which engineered the design for the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge.

He said he understands the university is trying to save money. But Ho said the projected savings of $6 million a year is a small fraction of UCSF’s $5.4 billion annual budget. At the same time, he said, UC is planning to raise student tuition, and a top executive in UCSF’s information technology program is in line for a substantial bonus.

“There’s a tone deafness within the UC system,” Ho said.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko