Thousands of Kaiser Permanente workers across the country, including Los Angeles and the majority of California, are planning to strike beginning on Wednesday due to understaffing and overworking.
The kaiser unions say that Kaiser needs better wages to attract workers and that it needs to hire enough people to make up for the exodus of staff during the pandemic.
The biggest union is The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions which represents 85,000 Kaiser healthcare workers in seven states and the District of Columbia.
In April, the Coalition began its national bargaining process ahead of the September 30th contract expiration. On Sept. 22, Coalition unions representing 75,000 Kaiser healthcare workers gave Kaiser executives 10-day notices for an unfair labor practice strike beginning Oct. 4.
The Coalition and Kaiser Permanente last negotiated a contract in 2019. That was before healthcare workers found themselves on the frontlines of the COVID pandemic that has worsened working conditions and exacerbated a healthcare staffing crisis.
The frustrations of healthcare workers, who feel they are being forced to care for too many patients for too little pay, have been boiling over across the country. Many of the workers who remain feel burned out and are struggling to handle a higher volume of patients. The concern over inadequate staffing resulted in a nurses’ strike in New York City in January, and there were more than a dozen similar strikes this year in California, Illinois, Michigan, and elsewhere.
With workers striking, this creates delays in the care of patients.
As the talks continue, the sides have yet to agree on a minimum hourly wage for workers and the rate of annual increases over the life of the four-year contract. The union wants a $25 hourly minimum wage and increases of 7 percent in the first two years and 6.25 percent in the two years afterward, according to its latest public proposal.
Kaiser has countered with minimum hourly wages of between $21 and $23 next year, increasing by a dollar a year. Raises would vary among locations, with workers in some places, like Northern California, receiving annual increases of 4 percent for four years, while some others would receive an increase of 3.5 percent the first year, followed by 3 percent annual increases.
Until a decision is made, the patients and workers at Kaiser will experience a very different healthcare environment than they are accustomed to.
For Annenberg Media, I’m Grayson Salomon