85,000 Kaiser employees poised to strike in September

It’s been a big year for labor strikes, and it’s likely to get even bigger: More than 85,000 unionized Kaiser Permanente employees are poised to strike over staffing levels, workloads, and wages when their contracts expire on September 30, according to The Guardian.

The workers claim Kaiser’s facilities are chronically understaffed, employee workloads are unsustainable, and wages aren’t keeping up with inflation, The Guardian reported. Tens of thousands of Kaiser workers picketed in July at 50 facilities across four states. Those potentially going on strike run the gamut from nurses to lab techs to administrative workers.

Kaiser is one of the largest health systems in the US, with 39 hospitals and more than 300,000 employees. The system reported a $2.1 billion profit for the second quarter of 2023, and more than $21 billion in profit over the last five years, according to The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, which comprises 12 unions representing Kaiser employees. The health system pays 49 executives at least $1 million each per year, according to the coalition.

Renée Saldaña, a spokesperson for SEIU-UHW, a California-based union that represents more than 100,000 healthcare workers, including 55,000+ Kaiser workers, told Healthcare Brew that “there just aren’t enough healthcare workers to care for patients right now.” “In some instances, there’s one worker doing the job that three or four workers were doing a few years ago,” Saldaña said.

Megan Mayes, a patient access representative at Kaiser Permanente, told The Guardian that Kaiser is struggling to hire new workers because its pay isn’t competitive.

“We used to have applicants lined up for blocks to get training just to be at Kaiser Permanente and I’ve never seen this ever in my 17 years here where we can’t even get one single applicant for a job,” Mayes said.

The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions is asking for a $25 hourly wage floor.

In a July 21 statement, Kaiser Permanente said it’s “one of the leaders in employee wages and benefits in every market we’re in.”

“We have discussed with the Coalition that in some regions Kaiser Permanente is paying Coalition-represented employees up to 28% above the market average wage rates—impacting our overall costs and ability to attract new members,” the statement read. “In other regions, we are paying at or slightly above the market average, which hurts our ability to attract new employees and retain the excellent employees we already have.”

In a separate statement released on July 26, Kaiser said it had hired 6,500 union workers so far this year, part of a larger plan to hire 10,000 new union workers in 2023.

In a statement Kaiser Permanente spokesperson Wayne Davis shared with Healthcare Brew on August 10, the health system said its “priority is to reach an agreement that ensures we can continue to provide market-competitive pay and outstanding benefits. 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.”