SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KTXL) — Nursing home and home care workers marched across Tower Bridge to the capitol grounds to demand that lawmakers include the creation of a quality standards board in the state budget.

The board, as proposed by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 2015 would “set industry standards that address prevalent workplace and quality issues.”

SEIU Local 2015’s proposed board would be made up of 10 members from state agencies, two members representing workers, two members representing employers, and two members representing patients and families.

“The industry was already getting hard,” certified nursing assistant Olga Evans said. “Just not enough workers. They’re just giving us way too many clients. They’re overloading us within eight hours and when Covid hit more people was calling in, more people was just getting sick with Covid so it was less workers and just really got hard.”

The march across Tower Bridge was one of several events that day put on by healthcare workers, including protests in southern California, as part of their Put Care First campaign.

In addition to staffing concerns, the workers called for higher pay and better protective equipment.