Last week, more than 75,000 unionized workers at Kaiser Permanente walked off the job, the latest in a string of high-profile Labor actions across the country.
The three-day strike against Kaiser Permanente began on Oct. 4 when workers took to the picket line to protest the nonprofit hospital giant’s alleged unfair labor practices, bad-faith bargaining, inadequate wages, and chronic staff shortages that employees say are harming them and patients.
The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions set up picket lines at hundreds of Kaiser hospitals and facilities in California, Colorado, Washington, and other states, as well as in Washington, D.C.
Jobs affected by the strike included licensed vocational nurses, emergency department technicians, radiology technicians, ultrasound sonographers, teleservice representatives, respiratory therapists, x-ray technicians, optometrists, certified nursing assistants, dietary services, behavioral health workers, surgical technicians, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, transporters, home health aides, phlebotomists, medical assistants, dental assistants, call center representatives, and housekeepers, among hundreds of other positions.
FOR THEIR PATIENTS
Renée Saldaña, a spokesperson for SEIU United Healthcare Workers West — which is part of the Kaiser union coalition — told the Los Angeles Times that “healthcare workers want to be at the facilities with their patients. They’re doing this for their patients because of the delays in care, because of the short-staffing crisis.”
The strike kicked off after contract talks between union negotiators and Kaiser — which reported nearly $3.3 billion in net income in the first half of 2023—stalled Oct. 3 without a tentative contract agreement. The previous four-year contract expired at the end of September, and negotiations over a new agreement began in April.
BURNED OUT
“We continue to have frontline healthcare workers who are burnt out and stretched to the max and leaving the industry,” Caroline Lucas, executive director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, told CNBC. “We have folks getting injured on the job because they’re trying to do too much and see too many people and work too quickly. It’s not a sustainable situation.”
Union negotiators have called on Kaiser to hire at least 10,000 new workers by the end of the year to help alleviate staff shortages that have resulted in care being delayed or denied.
Negotiators are also demanding a $25 minimum wage for all Kaiser employees and a 24.5 percent wage increase over the course of a new four-year contract.
The company has refused to meet many of the unions’ core demands, offering wage proposals that would not even keep up with inflation.
“Kaiser executives are refusing to listen to us and are bargaining in bad faith over the solutions we need to end the Kaiser short-staffing crisis,” said Jessica Cruz, a licensed vocational nurse at Kaiser Los Angeles Medical Center. “I see my patients’ frustrations when I have to rush them and hurry on to my next patient. That’s not the care I want to give. We’re burning ourselves out trying to do the jobs of two or three people, and our patients suffer when they can’t get the care they need due to Kaiser’s short-staffing.”
(Information from Common Dreams)
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