Why More Than 75,000 Health Care Workers Are on Strike

[justaprogressive]

After months of failed contract negotiations(italics mine), on Sept. 22, the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions issued a 10-day unfair labor practice strike notice. The unions are negotiating their first contract since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and they say that working conditions have become untenable and are impacting patient care. “We’ve repeatedly raised our concerns with Kaiser executives about the Kaiser short-staffing crisis, but they are bargaining in bad faith and refusing to listen to us,” said Audrey Cardenas Loera, an administrative specialist at Kaiser Permanente in Oregon, in a union press release.

So on Wednesday, thousands of health care workers began a three-day strike across the area in which Kaiser Permanente operates—California, Colorado, Washington, Virginia, Oregon, and Washington D.C.—made up of nurses, radiologists, X-ray technicians, receptionists, pharmacists, and hundreds of other roles. It’s scheduled to go until Oct. 7 while negotiations continue, but if a settlement isn’t reached by then, the union has threatened another strike in November.

It’s a dramatic turnaround for Kaiser Permanente, which at one point had a rare and admirable relationship with its workers’ union. In the late 1990s, the health care company struck a labor-management partnership that gave the union a say during decision-making at all levels, from the boardroom to the operating room. The partnership blossomed into success for both parties.

“This strike is a big blow to that long-lasting, well-documented, really important example of the ability of labor and management to work together,” explained Ariel Avgar, director of the Center for Applied Research on Work at Cornell University.* “The labor–management partnerships can have strikes, they have adversarial relationships at times, but given the scale and size of this, it’s a big deal.”

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/10/kaiser-permanente-strike-seiu-uhw-contract-nurses.html

[twodogsbarking]

1. So many in health care are women. Don't give up ladies, you are doing a great joh and deserve more.