Tensions in the healthcare world in California and Oregon are high, as, on Oct. 11, the union representing nearly 21,000 nurses, pharmacists, midwives, physical therapists, and others, who work for the Kaiser Permanente health system in California, as well as the union representing 3,400 workers in Oregon, voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike in those two states.
As the Los Angeles Times’s Suhauna Hussain wrote on the afternoon of Monday, Oct. 11, “Thousands of Kaiser Permanente employees in Southern California voted to authorize a strike against the healthcare giant, as the workers continue to protest what they describe as severe staffing shortages that put both medical staff and patients at risk. The strike authorization comes amid strained contract negotiations. Union representatives said nearly 21,000 nurses, pharmacists, midwives, physical therapists and others represented by United Nurses Assns. of California/Union of Health Care Professionals, or UNAC/UHCP, voted overwhelmingly — 96 percent — to approve a strike. The union contract expired Sept. 30, and the two sides have yet to agree on a new one. A strike would affect Kaiser hospitals and facilities in more than a dozen Southern California cities. Concerns about safety at work have led nurses to strike across the country over the last year.”
Further, Hussain wrote, “In July, about 1,400 registered nurses at USC Norris Cancer Hospital in Los Angeles and Keck Hospital of USC staged a two-day strike, citing concerns such as long shifts, not enough staff and an overreliance on contract nurses. Nurses at San Francisco’s Chinese Hospital and Riverside Community Hospital also went on strike this year. The regional strike vote comes as negotiations are underway for a national contract between Kaiser and the Alliance of Health Care Unions, which represents UNAC/UHCP as well as 20 other unions covering a total of more than 50,000 workers across the country,” she added.
The strike would also affect workers and healthcare facilities in Oregon. A staff-produced report from Portland’s KGW8 quoted the president of the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals (OFNHP), 96 percent of whose 3,400 members voted to authorize a strike in that state. “’Our members turned out in record numbers to say that they are willing to do what it takes to save patient care in Oregon,’ said Jodi Barschow, who is a nurse at Kaiser Sunnyside and the president of OFNHP. ‘Kaiser’s proposals would be a disaster for Oregon’s entire care system and show a profound disrespect for the frontline healthcare workers who are risking their lives during COVID,’” Barschow said, according to the KGW8 report.
Further, the KGW8 report noted, “OFNHP said staffing issues has reached ‘crisis levels’ and new employees are being offered a lower wage than colleagues who have been at Kaiser Permanente for longer. Workers filled out a survey asking how they are responding to the crisis. Of those surveyed, more than 60% said they are considering leaving Kaiser Permanente and about 42% said they are thinking about exiting the health care field entirely.”
Meanwhile, the Washington Post’s Jacob Bogage reported on Monday afternoon that “The vote — approved by 96 percent of the union’s 21,000 members in California and 3,400 in Oregon after three days of electronic balloting — does not automatically trigger a work stoppage. The union must give Kaiser Permanente 10 days’ notice before workers walk off the job. Labor and business leaders both expressed hope that a resolution could be found at the bargaining table in the coming days, though union officials acknowledged the sides remain divided on key issues. The looming impasse is another example in recent weeks of the labor movement’s increasingly hardened stance in contract negotiations. Hollywood production workers voted to authorize a strike earlier in October and workers at Kellogg’s cereal factories walked off workroom floors last week. The leaders of the two unions that led the strike drive, the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals and Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, say the pandemic has exposed systemic problems in the health-care workforce and that nurses and other health workers can no longer weather the long and debilitating hours without more corporate support.”
And Bogage quoted Denise Duncan, R.N., president of the California union, as stating that “Our members feel that they’re pivotal stakeholders to how health care is administered and designed at a front-line level. We think it’s valuable work and we think it’s being cut back. We think systems have been shortchanged. There’s increased pressure placed on nurses for what we call the churn. Get the patient in and get the patient out,” Duncan added. “We need more hands on deck.”
Bogage reported that “A strike would affect hospitals in Anaheim, Bakersfield, Baldwin Park, Downey, Fontana, Irvine, Los Angeles, Ontario Vineyard, Panorama City, Riverside, San Diego, West Los Angeles and Woodland Hills in California. In Oregon, Kaiser facilities are generally concentrated in Portland, but facilities as far south as Eugene would also be affected.”
And he quoted Kaiser spokesman in an emailed statement that stated that the health system was “committed to resolving this quickly” and would continue to negotiate with labor leaders. Kaiser workers are represented by individual trade unions, but they bargain on larger issues — such as wages and benefits — together as part of the Alliance of Health Care Unions. “We ask that our employees reject a call to walk away from the patients who need them,” Brown said. “Our priority is to continue to provide our members with high-quality, safe care. In the event of any kind of work stoppage, our facilities will be staffed by our physicians along with trained and experienced managers and contingency staff.”
But union officials said Kaiser executives would be at fault for any work stoppage. More than 4 in 10 Kaiser health workers in Oregon reported considering leaving the health-care industry because of the company’s wage system and staffing issues, according to a survey conducted by the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals.
Meanwhile, a press release posted to the website of the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC-UHCP) on Oct. 1, under the heading, “Press Release: Health Care Heroes Work Without Contract,” began thus: “Thousands of registered nurses and health care workers are caring for Kaiser Permanente patients without a union contract for the first time in decades as of midnight on October 1. The employer refused a customary 30-day extension, leaving the nearly 24,000 members of UNAC/UHCP to continue voting on a strike authorization through October 10. Within 12 hours of strike authorization voting, 54 percent of eligible UNAC/UHCP members had cast a vote. A strike authorization vote gives the bargaining team the option of calling a strike if absolutely necessary. As required, the employer would get a 10-day notice before workers would take the ultimate step for lasting improvements for the sake of patients and workers.”
“We’re concerned about the future of nursing and how we recruit and retain nurses and other health care professionals to serve our communities for years to come,” said Denise Duncan, R.N., president of UNAC/UHCP, in a statement contained in the press release. “We can no longer sit back and watch the employer continue to dismantle the progress we made in quality patient care and health plan membership growth.”
The press release went on to say that “Health care employees—represented by UNAC/UHCP and other unions in the Alliance of Health Care Unions—worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic to ensure that Kaiser Permanente patients and families received quality care and compassion. Unionized workers saved Kaiser Permanente and brought the organization back from the brink of collapse in the 1990s. Today, Kaiser Permanente is a successful health-care giant—serving one in four Californians and others in states across the country. Yet Kaiser Permanente—sitting on $44.5 billion in reserves—wants to slash wages for new nurses and depress wages for current workers trying to keep up with rising costs for food, housing, and other essentials.”
The Los Angeles Times’s Hussain further reported that “Bargaining with Kaiser continues this week and Duncan said she is hopeful union leaders and Kaiser Permanente will reach an agreement by the end of the month, avoiding a strike. Top of mind for healthcare workers is a new stratified pay system the healthcare giant proposed that the union says would depress wages for new nurses and other recruits. Workers say the system could fuel more shortages at Kaiser’s Southern California hospitals and clinics. Kaiser’s proposal would lower the wage scale for almost every job classification represented by the alliance of unions by 26 percent to 39 percent for new hires beginning in January 2023, said Jane Carter, a labor economist and UNAC/UHCP’s director of research, regulatory affairs and public policy. If implemented, this “two-tiered” system could breed resentment among workers paid at different rates for the same work, cause higher turnover and impair efforts to attract and retain skilled workers, Carter said. Carter, who has participated in bargaining sessions, said the company has not explained the shift to the new system. ‘They have not explained their reasoning for these draconian cuts they’re proposing while they’re so profitable,’ she said.”
Hussain went on to write that “Kaiser based its proposal on a survey by a third-party vendor it commissioned early this year to analyze market-rate wages. Carter said that analysis is severely deflated compared with actual market rates and that the survey relied too much on community medical centers as data points, failing to include rates from competitors that pay more, such as Sharp HealthCare in San Diego. The survey also did not assess a large chunk of the job classifications Kaiser Permanente is proposing a pay change for, she said. Kaiser Permanente spokesperson Terry Kanakri said in an email that the independent analysis included major healthcare providers with competitive rates such as Cedars-Sinai and found union-represented employee wages to be 26 percent over market in nearly all the markets where the company operates, and in some cases much higher.”
And she quoted Kanakri as saying that “Millions of Americans struggle with healthcare expenses. Looking ahead, we must reduce expenses to remain competitive long term, and our wages and benefits represent more than 50% of our overall cost structure. We are not proposing any kind of wage or benefit reduction for our 48,000 current Alliance employees.”
This is a developing story. Healthcare Innovation will update it as additional developments emerge.
