Kaiser pharmacy strike averted in deal. Other walkouts still planned later this week
Kaiser Permanente reached a tentative agreement overnight with the Guild for Professional Pharmacists, averting a weeklong Northern California strike that had been scheduled to begin Monday morning.
In a statement, the Oakland-based health care giant said it reached a deal with the pharmacists’ union around 1 a.m. on a three-year contract that guarantees raises each year with no reductions to health benefits and higher bonus incentive opportunities.
“In light of this, the Guild for Professional Pharmacists has canceled the strike that was expected to begin November 15 and our pharmacies will return to normal operations later today,” Kaiser wrote.
Kaiser Permanente over the weekend reached a tentative four-year contract with 50,000 employees across Southern California, Oregon and Hawaii.
However, Stationary Engineers Local 39, which represents about 700 structural and biomedical engineers who have been picketing Kaiser hospitals in the Sacramento area since mid-September, said it would continue to strike until it had a new contract. The union contends that its engineers will receive far lower wages near the end of their current three-year contracts than their peers at other large health providers.
Major unions combining for tens of thousands of workers are still, as of Monday morning, planning sympathy strikes for Local 39 later this week.
Roughly 40,000 optometrists, clinical laboratory scientists, X-ray technicians, housekeepers and other front-line workers from the SEIU-UHW, the Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 29 and the Engineers and Scientists of California Local 20 plan to walk out Thursday.
About 22,000 registered nurses in the California Nurses Association are set to join close to 2,000 mental health clinicians in the National Union of Healthcare Workers, the latter of which is also in bargaining with Kaiser and plans a one-day strike Friday.
“At this time there is no change in the Local 39 Operating Engineers strike,” Kaiser said in Monday morning’s statement. “Other unions have not yet rescinded their one-day sympathy strike notices for Thursday, November 18 and Friday, November 19.”
In its statement, Kaiser said it is “confident” it will reach agreements with Local 39 and NUHW “very soon.”
This story was originally published November 15, 2021 at 8:00 AM.
