Need a physical therapist at Kaiser? Starting Nov. 22, strike will make them tough to find
About 1,350 health care workers from Sacramento to Fresno will join roughly 37,000 other unionized workers in an open-ended strike against Kaiser Permanente in Oregon, California and Hawaii starting Nov. 22, labor leaders said Friday.
Physical therapists, occupational therapists and speech-language pathologists, all represented by United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals, issued a news release calling for Kaiser to invest in patient care and the workers who provide it.
“After nearly two years of courageously working through the COVID-19 pandemic, workers deserve better than to watch management unilaterally depress wages, ignore critical staffing shortages, and make it more difficult for employee unions to flourish,” said Denise Duncan, a registered nurse and president of UNAC/UHCP. “UNAC/UHCP members know their patients deserve the best care, and they’re willing to fight to get it.”
Kaiser, in a statement issued Thursday, said it has offered wage proposals that would keep its employees among the highest-paid workers in the nation and is disappointed that the unions are using strikes as a bargaining tactic.
In its statement, the company said: “We have prepared thoroughly to care for our patients in the event of a strike, but there will be some impact, which we are working to minimize. During the strike, care will be provided by experienced clinical staff and physicians, with the support of trained and qualified contingency staff.”
Many Kaiser employees share Duncan’s concern over Kaiser’s proposal to implement a two-tier wage system that would pay new hires or workers in certain geographic markets less than other employees doing the same work. Tens of thousands of employees have authorized their unions to call one-day sympathy strikes, supporting fellow workers whose contracts have expired and who are launching open-ended strikes against Kaiser.
The sympathy strikes bring home the importance of the battle over the wage proposal, said labor expert Kate Bronfenbrenner, because heath care workers are notoriously reluctant to go out on strike out of concern for their patients.
The employees who are walking out in sympathy are also giving up a day’s pay when they don’t have to do that, and that’s not common for workers in the United States, said Bronfenbrenner, the director of labor education research at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations
She also noted that research going back to the 1980s has shown that two-tier wage systems so damaged worker morale and productivity that it ended up costing airlines, logistics companies and other businesses money. For instance, she said, UPS experienced extremely high turnover when it paid part-time workers at a different rate than full-time employees.
The therapists and pathologists are not the only Northern California workers on strike at Kaiser. The Guild for Professional Pharmacists represents roughly 2,150 Kaiser druggists, 370 of them in the Sacramento region. They plan to strike from Monday through Nov. 22.
Roughly 700 biomedical and structural engineers have been on strike at Kaiser facilities in Northern California since Sept. 18. These workers maintain Kaiser’s buildings and medical equipment, including electrical distribution, fire life safety systems, X-ray machines, intravenous pumps and MRI machinery.
Kaiser members in Northern California face the greatest potential disruptions in care on Thursday and Nov. 18 when several large, powerful unions plan one-day walkouts statewide in support of their coworkers.
Roughly 40,000 members of three unions representing areas of health care from optometry to clinical lab tests, from x-rays to housekeeping plan to walk out Thursday all across Kaiser facilities statewide. They are members of the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, the Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 29, and the Engineers and Scientists of California Local 20.
On Nov. 19, about 22,000 registered nurses in the California Nurses Association and nearly 2,000 mental health clinicians in the National Union of Healthcare Workers will hit the picket line with their striking comrades all around California.
The epicenter of the strike, however, is in Southern California where tens of thousands of nurses, pharmacy workers, housekeepers and other union-represented Kaiser employees live, work and have reached stand-offs on bargaining new contracts.
Call to readers
Is the Kaiser Permanente strike affecting your access to care? Contact The Bee’s Cathie Anderson at canderson@sacbee.com to share what’s happening.
