Kaiser’s California workers gain hefty wage increases in ‘historic’ deal with labor unions
Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su helped Oakland-based Kaiser Permanente and more than 85,000 workers in the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions reach a “historic” tentative labor agreement in the wee hours of Friday morning.
It gives California workers a minimum wage of $25 an hour within three years, something that the largest union in the coalition, the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, has aggressively campaigned to get in the Legislature and in municipal referendums.
“What the parties have achieved here in Oakland demonstrates, once again, that collective bargaining works,” said Su, California’s former labor chief. “When workers have a voice and a seat at the table, it can result in historic gains for workers, their employer and our country.”
On the ground in California, Su, Kaiser and its unions resolve key lingering issues after seven months of bargaining. The deal came after workers launched the largest-ever strike in U.S. health care industry last week.
“We’re incredibly grateful to acting U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su and the Biden administration for supporting workers’ right to collective bargaining. Acting Secretary Su was instrumental in advancing talks and helping to facilitate a successful conclusion to these negotiations,” said Sarah Levesque, secretary-treasurer of the Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 2.
Pay increase headed for ratification vote
The tentative four-year deal will now go to the 85,000-plus Kaiser employees represented by the coalition unions for a ratification vote. The process will begin Oct. 18, and will take several weeks. The contract, when it’s approved, will be retroactively effective to Oct. 1, 2023.
Here are other key aspects of the deal:
▪ Workers outside California will receive a minimum hourly wage that will reach $23 in three years.
▪ Across-the-board raises over the contract term would total 21% that union leaders say will help improve retention. For the first time, all coalition workers will receive the same wage increase no matter which state they they work in for Kaiser.
▪ Enhanced employee performance bonuses, setting minimum payout opportunities and substantially increasing the maximum payouts. In a novel approach, some bonuses will be tied to patient outcomes.
▪ Streamlined hiring practices and increased investments in professional development and job training, including mass hiring events, training existing workers to take new jobs, and training future healthcare workers.
“This deal is life-changing for frontline health care workers like me, and life-saving for our patients,” said Yvonne Esquivel, a pediatric medical assistant at Kaiser Permanente in Gilroy. “Thousands of Kaiser health care workers fought hard for this new agreement, and now we will finally have the resources we need to do the job we love and keep our patients safe.”
The coalition unions include some of Kaiser’s lowest paid workers, but the occupations are diverse when it comes to pay and types of jobs. Affected professions include licensed vocational nurses, emergency department technicians, radiology technicians, ultrasound sonographers, teleservice representatives, respiratory therapists, optometrists, certified nursing assistants, behavioral health workers, surgical technicians, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, transporters, home health aides, phlebotomists, medical assistants, dental assistants, call center representatives and housekeepers.
In reports issued this year, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, Labor Center said that about a half-million health care workers around the state were struggling to survive on their wages, even as they showed up to care for patients amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Senate Bill 525, a bill that’s on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk, would set a minimum wage for health care workers, putting them on a path to a $25 minimum wage by June 2026. If that measure doesn’t get the governor’s approval, the wage terms in the Kaiser agreement would likely put pressure on on other big health systems to raise pay for the industry’s lowest-paid workers, said Laurel Lucia, director of the health care program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center.
If the $25 minimum wage was instituted in the industry, the researchers said, “patients, workers and industry alike would benefit from lower turnover rates, better staffing, and better outcomes, like reduced hospital stays and even lower mortality rates.”
The lowest-paid workers would see a wage increase of 30%, according to a Labor Center study, while average overall costs would rise by about 3% across the affected health facilities.
SEIU-UHW won public support for its $25 minimum wage ballot initiatives in a handful of California municipalities, but legal challenges delayed implementation.
This story was originally published October 13, 2023 at 11:38 AM.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story indicated that Kaiser workers would receive a $25 minimum wage when a new contract is ratified. Workers would reach that minimum hourly wage in three years.
