Front-line health care workers at Kaiser Permanente locations in four states are picketing this week as they continue to negotiate with one of the nation’s largest nonprofit medical organizations for higher pay and improved staffing levels.
The Coalition of Kaiser Pemanente Unions representing 85,000 housekeepers, respiratory therapists and other non-doctor staff is demanding a ramp-up in staffing as well as a $25 minimum wage.
“Kaiser is considered one of the best places to work in healthcare, but a lot of workers are saying Kaiser has lost their way,” SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West Press Secretary Renee Saldana told Spectrum News. “They’re putting profits over patients.”
Serving 13 million people at 39 hospitals in seven states and Washington, D.C., Kaiser is one of the largest healthcare providers in the Western U.S. with facilities in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington. Tens of thousands of frontline workers in those states are picketing throughout the week to protest understaffed hospitals and clinics they say are leading to mistaken diagnoses and patient neglect.
The current contract for the Coalition workers has been in place since 2019 and is set to expire September 30. The Coalition and Kaiser are halfway through eight rounds of bargaining that began in April and led to an agreed-upon joint goal of hiring 10,000 new people for Coalition-represented jobs in 2023.
In a statement, Kaiser said it is making progress toward that goal.
“Our priority is to reach an agreement that ensures we can continue to provide market-competitive pay and outstanding benefits,” Kaiser Permanente said in a statement. “We are confident we’ll be able to reach an agreement that strengthens our position as a best place to work and ensures that the high-quality care our members expect from us remains affordable and easy to access.”
The global pandemic, inflation, rising costs to deliver healthcare, labor shortages, supply chain disruptions and increased demand for healthcare access have created challenges for Kaiser, the statement added.
The nonprofit said it is paying Coalition employees as much as 28% more than the market average in some areas and paying at or slightly above the market average in other regions.
Coalition employees, however, say Kaiser can do more to ensure that workers are paid well enough to afford to live in the areas where they work, which are among the most expensive in the nation.
In 2022, Kaiser’s revenue was $95 billion. Earlier this year, it announced a plan to spend $5 billion acquiring Pennsylvania-based Geisinger Health as part of a new nonprofit healthcare system it will operate for the east coast.