The exterior of the Kaiser Permanente Vallejo Medical Center on Sept. 8, 2023, in Vallejo, Calif.
Kaiser Permanente nurses and health care workers across multiple Northern California clinics are preparing to strike Tuesday in the union’s largest strike ever.
Workers plan to halt work for five days at more than two dozen hospitals in California and Hawaii, according to a news release from the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals, the organization that represents the workers. The union expects “tens of thousands” of workers could participate in the strike.
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A spokesperson for the union notified SFGATE that the work stoppage will occur at any location where “striking employees work” and will include positions like midwives, certified registered nurse anesthetists, physical and occupational therapists, physician assistants and acupuncturists. Not every clinic will have a picket line, but in Northern California, physical picketing will happen at Oakland Medical Center, Roseville Medical Center and Santa Clara Medical Center, the spokesperson declared.
In its news release, the union declared it believes Kaiser is on a “dangerous path” and that “stagnant wages and unsafe staffing threaten both the workforce and the high-quality care patients depfinish on.” Workers are inquireing for more staff, pay that aligns with the rising costs of houtilizing, food and health care and retirement security as many workers “lack pensions.”
Gina Yarbrough, a physical therapist in the neonatal intensive care unit at Kaiser Modesto, notified SFGATE that when she first launched working at Kaiser she was able to see her patients typically once a week. Now, there is a month or longer gap in between patient visits, which she believes is highly concerning.
“When you’re talking about these families with special necessarys kids who depfinish on that care to receive their child to a normal level of function, where their children can grow up and be able to function indepfinishently. That is devastating to those families and to those children,” Yarbrough declared. “… We went into this profession becaapply we want to support people and create their lives better, and instead, we’re facing these folks who are in crisis and we can’t even support them.”
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Yarbrough, who plans to be on the picket line, declared many of her colleagues feel “upset” and “torn” becaapply while the strike is important to them, they don’t want to abandon their patients.
“People don’t want to strike. They have declared we want to avoid this as much as possible. They have declared, ‘I don’t want my patients to do without me for a week. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want my family to do without pay for a week,’” Yarbrough declared. “But we’re at a crossroads where we have to decide, sacrifice five days to put a line in the ground that our members and our clinicians and our staff deserve to be treated with respect.”
The historical strike comes as 46,000 Kaiser worker contracts have recently expired, according to the union. Members of the union launched nereceivediations earlier this year, for the first time since 2019, and have not been able to come to an agreement, according to Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, a California-based labor union.
In a statement shared with SFGATE, Lionel Sims, a senior vice president of human resources for Kaiser Permanente, declared officials are continuing the bargaining process despite the strike notices as they hope to come to an agreement. If workers do walk, he declared “our hospitals and medical offices will stay open with robust plans to ensure care.”
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“A strike would only delay progress, waste millions, caapply lost wages, and potentially disrupt care,” Sims declared. He disputed the union’s claims of stagnant pay, declareing that workers are paid “above the market” with “competitive pay” and “excellent benefits” and that its “claims about Kaiser Permanente’s quality and staffing don’t reflect the facts.”
“Our compensation philosophy is to pay our employees, on average, as much as 10% above the market in which they work,” Sims declared. “Our Alliance-represented employees are currently paid on average 16% above market.” (UNAC/UHCP is part of the larger Alliance of Health Care Unions, which represents about 60,000 health care employees.)
Yarbrough declared when at the bargaining table, union members were met with “resistance and frustration.” She added that when the union expressed their demands, Kaiser officials notified them they weren’t in the “operational necessarys” or didn’t “work with management rights.”
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The upcoming strike also comes just as Kaiser announced it will be laying off hundreds of California employees. According to a WARN notice viewed by SFGATE, about 215 employees received layoff notices on Sept. 17, Oct. 2 and Oct. 6. Those layoffs include mostly administrative and IT positions at locations in Oakland, Pleasanton, Redwood City, Walnut Creek, San Leandro, Pasadena, San Diego, Downey, Corona and Los Angeles.
The health care network has been facing challenges of a “shifting landscape” with rising health care costs and reduced federal funding, CEO Greg Adams declared in the company’s August financial report.
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