The largest hospital system in California is now being held hostage by a union. Hollywood, freight companies, the auto industry and more are being turned over to the unions. Now, your health is endangered.
“The coalition of unions that represents 85,000 health care workers at Kaiser Permanente hospitals and clinics around the country announced on Thursday that it will soon begin the process of asking members to vote to strike over unfair labor negotiating practices, understaffing and underpaying workers.
“We are here today, because there is a crisis in patient care at Kaiser Permanente,” said Caroline Lucas, the executive director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, which has 12 local union members, at a press conference announcing the vote in Los Angeles. “Too many facilities are stretched to the brink. They’re understaffed. The people that are left to provide care are maxed.”
Full disclosure—I am a frequent flyer at Kaiser. This would harm my health care directly—but I am only one of millions to be affected by the union attempt to take over Kaiser. This would happen on October 1, 2023.
Kaiser Permanente workers to vote on strike for more staffing, fair wages
If approved by 85,000 rank-and-file members of unionized health care workers at Kaiser Permanente, the strike could be the largest of its kind in U.S. history.
SAM RIBAKOFF, Courthousenews, 8/24/23 https://www.courthousenews.com/kaiser-permanente-workers-to-vote-on-strike-for-more-staffing-fair-wages/
(CN) — The coalition of unions that represents 85,000 health care workers at Kaiser Permanente hospitals and clinics around the country announced on Thursday that it will soon begin the process of asking members to vote to strike over unfair labor negotiating practices, understaffing and underpaying workers.
“We are here today, because there is a crisis in patient care at Kaiser Permanente,” said Caroline Lucas, the executive director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, which has 12 local union members, at a press conference announcing the vote in Los Angeles. “Too many facilities are stretched to the brink. They’re understaffed. The people that are left to provide care are maxed.”
She stressed that hospital understaffing overburdens health care workers and it causes delays in treating patients.
“Kaiser used to be the industry leader, but they have abdicated that role by failing to work with us to solve the staffing crisis, and we are all paying for it, the patients, our families and the folks providing the healthcare,” she said.
Lucas went on to say that the rising cost of living, compounded by inflation, makes it hard for health care workers to stay at their jobs.
With 38 days left in the workers’ contract with the company, Kaiser Permanente has refused to even meet with the union’s bargaining team, said Dave Regan, president of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West.
Because of the company’s intransigence, the leadership of the union will ask rank-and-file members to authorize a strike for unfair labor negotiations starting on August 26 and going through mid-September.
If the strike is authorized by union members, it would be the largest strike of health care workers in U.S. history, Regan said, affecting possibly millions of people in seven states and Washington, D.C.
“That’s where we’ve gotten to on the heels of a pandemic. A once-in-a-century event,” Regan said, adding that 63 members of his union died during the pandemic. “Health care workers for the last three years have been pushed to the limits. It’s been traumatic. It’s been exhausting. It’s been debilitating in so many ways.”
Although Kaiser Permanente is a nonprofit health care company, it’s nonprofit in name only, Regan said. He said Kaiser has the money both to hire more hospital staff and to pay existing staff a fair wage.
The company, Regan noted, has gone from $50 billion to over $62 billion in net worth in the last year, and its investment portfolio is more than $120 billion — all of which goes untaxed because of Kaiser’s nonprofit status. Kaiser’s CEO, he continued, made a salary of $17 million last year.
The union’s proposal, Regan said, was for a four-year contract with annual pay increases, and a minimum wage of $25 an hour. Kaiser offered its own proposal by email yesterday, he said, of $21 an hour minimum wage in 2026.
“I think everyone knows you cannot live, you cannot take care of a family in Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Honolulu, on $19, $20, $21 an hour,” Regan said.
Earlier in the press conference, Regan connected the request of health care workers to those of Hollywood screenwriters, teachers, hotel workers and other unionized workers striking this year: fair wages that take into account high cost-of-living expenses and inflation. Regan referred to the flurry of labor organizing and strikes as the “hot union summer of 2023.”
If it’s authorized, the strike could start as early as Oct. 1 and impact dozens of nationwide Kaiser Permanente hospitals, clinics and other facilities.
“How will this affect patient care? The delays will get worse. The disruptions will get worse. The quality will get worse,” Regan said about Kaiser Permanente facilities if the strike is approved.
He added that the company is already releasing ads to hire strikebreakers, offering wages three times what workers receive now.
“I would just like to add to that. Would a strike impact patient care? It would. It would cause delays, but you know what else causes delays in patient care? Not having a staff to treat the patients. Waiting six months in Colorado for a radiology appointment. That causes delays in care. We would go on strike because we care about fixing those things,” Lucas added.
