“Millions of Americans are safer today because tens of thousands of dedicated health care workers fought for and won the critical resources they need and that patients need,” said Caroline Lucas, Executive Director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions.
A Kaiser spokesperson said the four-year agreement will offer union coalition-represented employees “competitive wages, excellent benefits, generous retirement income plans, and valuable job training opportunities that support their economic well-being, advance our shared mission, and keep Kaiser Permanente a best place to work and receive care.”
Kaiser and its unions had been locked in negotiations over pay, outsourcing protections and staffing issues for six months by the time the union walked out, which had immediate impacts on the health system. Workers told The Washington Post that the staff shortages are at a breaking point in many clinics, resulting in a worsening patient care and an erosion of mental health among front-line providers. Workers said better pay and benefits are needed to halt staff departures, and they bristled at Kaiser’s request to drop language preventing the company from outsourcing work.
“The big thing is we’re burned out,” said Keven Dardon, a longtime Kaiser employee who walked out last week. “People are doing double and triple the work. … And you look at jobs in fast food, and everything is $20 an hour and up. We clean blood and disinfect bodies.”
Kaiser, meanwhile, has said it has made efforts to increase staffing at hospitals despite the droves of workers who left amid the “Great Resignation” of 2021 and 2022, and charges that it has already exceeded the goal of 10,000 new hires for the year.
The tentative agreement establishes new minimum wages over three years for union employees, which Kaiser said will reach $25 per hour in California and $23 per hour in other states. It also provides for across-the-board wage increases totaling 21 percent over four years, according to a statement from Kaiser.
Kaiser and other medical facilities are coming off a difficult couple of years as the health care system bore the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic, then with deferred medical issues of all sorts that further weighed on the workforce. Kaiser’s finances took a turn for the worse in 2022, as the previous year’s positive results gave way to a net loss of $4.5 billion last year.
It was against that backdrop that Kaiser workers in five states and the District of Columbia walked off the job last Wednesday, leading the organization to close down many of its labs, imaging centers and pharmacies. The company told patients it planned to bring in contract staff to keep critical services running through the strike.
The tentative deal is also notable for Kaiser, because it’s their first contract since the pandemic, which workers say exacerbated already dire staffing needs. The coalition of unions said the company must offer higher wages to entire workers to stay, citing the high cost of living in California especially.
Both the company and the unions said acting U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Julie Su had been “instrumental” in helping both parties arrive at a deal, after she traveled to Oakland, California to assist with negotiations. It’s the latest major labor dispute in which Su played a role; she also became involved in mediating a 2022 railroad dispute, and in negotiating a deal with West Coast port workers that narrowly averted a strike over the summer.