24K Bay Area Kaiser Workers To Strike In October

REDWOOD CITY, CA — Kaiser Permanente workers in California authorized a strike in early October that would be the biggest in the United States in more than two decades, the health care network's union announced this week.

The authorization affecting more than 24,000 Kaiser Permanente workers in the San Francisco Bay Area marked the first of the 80,000-plus expected Kaiser Permanente workers to vote as members of the Service Employees International Union – United Healthcare Workers West. It would impact 1,000 Redwood City and 2,200 San Jose Kaiser workers.

SEIU members across the state voted between July 29 and Aug. 11 whether to approve the unfair labor practices strike at the prominent health care network.

If voting results in five other states and the District of Columbia meet the same fate, the walkout would be the largest since 1997, according to the union.

More than 37,000 cast ballots in support of a strike, equating to 98 percent of the workforce in the union.

Strike authorization votes among other groups of Kaiser workers in California, and Kaiser Permanente employees in Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia run through mid-September. The strike would start in early October and be the nation’s largest since the Teamsters’ walkout at United Parcel Service in 1997.

"Kaiser workers all over California are putting a stake in the ground that it’s time for this corporation to get back on track and live up to its mission to help patients, workers and communities thrive," said Heather Wright, a women’s health clerk at Kaiser Permanente in Santa Clara. "This strike vote is about stopping Kaiser’s unfair labor practices. This company should be all about providing the best possible patient care, but unfortunately its focus in recent years has been on making billions of dollars in profits and millions of dollars for Kaiser executives."

Workers want Kaiser Permanente to abide by the following:

1. Restore a true worker-management partnership, and have Kaiser bargain in good faith

2. Ensure safe staffing and compassionate use of technology

3. Build the workforce of the future to deal with major projected shortages of licensed and accredited staff in the coming years

4. Protect middle-class jobs with wages and benefits that can support families

With Kaiser making more than $5.2 billion in profits during the first half of 2019 and sitting on $35 billion in reserves, the union workers would like the nonprofit entity to spread the wealth, union representatives indicated.

In particular, the union cites extraordinary pay for the upper echelons of the company, providing its chief executive with a $6 million raise to $16 million a year and at least 36 executives with $1 million-plus annually.

Union health care workers are also disgruntled with care for low-income patients citing little attention paid to Medicaid patients.

The workers’ national contract expired Sept. 30, 2018, and in December 2018 the National Labor Relations Board charged Kaiser Permanente with failing to bargain in good faith. Since then, Kaiser has continued to commit unfair labor practices, the union contends.

Kaiser Permanente executives view the situation differently.

The health care firm believes the two entities "have been working together toward a mutually beneficial as part of the national bargaining with the coalition of Kaiser's unions," Kaiser chief spokesman John Nelson insisted.

"Unfortunately, UHW leadership has decided to use the threat of a strike as a bargaining tactic, designed to divide employees and mischaracterize Kaiser Permanente’s position, even though most of the contracts don’t expire until October," Nelson said, adding the vote used misleading ballot questions used by the union as follows:

• "I vote Yes to authorize our bargaining team to call for a strike to protest Kaiser’s illegal behavior and unfair labor practices and to show my support for a contract with good raises, no take-aways and a ban on subcontracting."
• "I vote No and am willing to accept a contract that increases our medical costs, cuts our pensions and retiree medical benefits, offers lower pay scales and raises that are less for Oregon and Washington than California."

"To be clear, Kaiser Permanente has presented a contract proposal that would provide annual pay increases that would keep our employees compensated higher than market averages and maintain excellent benefits. Contrary to the union’s claims, there are no pay cuts and no changes to our employees’ defined pension benefit, under our proposal," Nelson declared.

He emphasized Kaiser's first priority is "always continuity of care for our patients and members."

The health care company believes the SEIU-UHW union leadership is making a power play and luring its membership onto the wrong path that hinders negotiations "rather than focusing on what is best for their membership."

Despite the union leadership’s "disruptive tactics," Nelson said he's convinced the two entities can come to an agreement that's beneficial to both.

The proposed contract offer includes:

• Wage increases - across the board each year through 2022 of 3 percent each year in Northern and Southern California.
• Opportunities for new hires - Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition are proposing a $40 million Workforce Development Fund and creation of new-hire training positions, all part of the solution to address the national shortage of health care workers and help develop the next generation of unionized workers in health care.
• Retirement security - the proposal preserves the existing defined pension plan along with other strong retirement benefits.
• Career mobility - the plan includes a more robust tuition reimbursement program for employees that allows more funds to be used for travel.
• Affordable health care - the offer also provides a pharmacy utilization approach that for giving employees incentives to take greater responsibility for their health by rewarding them for increasing their use of mail-order prescriptions.