Kaiser Permanente hospital and unions have reached an agreement in principle to end one of the largest healthcare worker strikes in the United States. Some 75,000 workers at the centre, which is also one of the country’s largest insurers, had begun a three-day protest demanding better wages and improved conditions. This was the first collective bargaining agreement negotiated after the coronavirus pandemic. The conflict affected operations in hospitals in seven states in the country, where Kaiser serves 13 million people. The principle of agreement includes a salary increase of 21% divided annually until 2027. This deactivates new protests called for the beginning of November and prevents thousands of other healthcare employees from joining who will see their collective contracts expire at the end of October.
The tentative agreement raises the minimum for California workers to $25 an hour. In the rest of the States, employees will earn $23 per hour. The pact also includes a 21% increase that will be divided over the next four years, the duration of the new agreement. Kaiser Permanente, a private nonprofit organization, is committed to offering protections to its workers against subcontracting and outsourcing. The agreement must be ratified by the workers in the coming weeks.
“This historic agreement raises the bar for the entire healthcare industry nationwide,” said Caroline Lucas, executive director of the Kaiser Permanente coalition of unions. “Millions of Americans are safer now because tens of thousands of dedicated workers fought and won resources that were vital to them and patients,” she added in a statement issued this afternoon.
The agreement was announced this morning by the parties on social networks. The coalition, which represents some 85,000 workers, has appreciated the involvement of Julie Su, the Secretary of Labor of the Biden Administration. Minister Su has held the position temporarily since March of this year, waiting for Republicans in the Senate to vote on her appointment. “She has been instrumental in moving the dialogue forward and in facilitating a satisfactory conclusion,” she assured Los Angeles Times Sarah Levesque, secretary of section two of one of the unions that make up the workers’ defense group.
Biden has recognized the agreement reached in a statement showing his support for workers’ organizations. “We owe a great debt to healthcare employees (…) these workers and all auxiliaries kept our hospitals and the country running in the dark months of the pandemic. They supported us during one of our toughest times,” said the president this Friday, who last month became the first occupant of the White House to join a picket in support of auto industry workers.
The unions represent nurses, healthcare assistants, administrative staff, cafeteria and cleaning employees, laboratory technicians and optometrists, among others. These asked for a minimum wage of $25 per hour and increases of 7% in the first two years of the contract and 6.25% in the remaining two years. The final arrangement is similar to your demands.
The company, based in Oakland, northern California, had revenue in the last quarter of $2.1 billion. Kaiser had made a counteroffer with salaries between $21 and $23 per hour, depending on the employees’ location, and promised to hire 10,000 new workers to offload the workload on its workforce. The company assures that since 2022 it has added 51,000 workers to its centers, located in several States.
The union, the Western chapter of the United Healthcare Workers, had accused Kaiser Permanente of bargaining in “bad faith.” This led to the dialogue between the parties getting bogged down and the labor conflict breaking out. The first day of the strike was October 4. Thousands of employees left the centers where they worked at six in the morning to begin picketing at the doors of hospitals.
These protests were followed, mostly, in the western United States. Employees in Colorado, Oregon and Washington picketed for three days, as did workers in California, where most of Kaiser Permanente’s business is concentrated. Smaller demonstrations, with about 180 toilets and only on one day, were held in Virginia and Washington DC. The coalition of unions had notified the company that if an agreement was not reached they would hold new protests between November 1 and 8. Another 3,000 hospital workers in Seattle (Washington) have also joined the strike, as their current contract expires on October 31.
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