The unprecedented four-week strike by nurses and healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente facilities in California and Hawaii that ended a week ago returned health care services back to normal, but numerous loose ends remain to be resolved.
More than 30,000 workers represented by the UNAC/UHCP and Alliance of Health Care Unions returned to work last week.
Kaiser officials reported today that of the 53 local bargaining units for the striking unions, settlements have been reached with all but eight local unions, following a tentative agreement on a 21.5% wage increase over four years.
The labor action was the largest open-ended nurse strike in U.S. history, ending on Feb. 24.
In a statement, the Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP) said the wage agreement is part of a broader package that includes “real gains on safe staffing, recruitment and retention.”
“Returning members to their patients and their livelihoods is the clearest path to securing a final agreement and building on the progress achieved during the strike,” the unions said.
“We’re continuing to meet and negotiate with each local union over the remaining open issues,” Kaiser officials said in a statement. “This has been a difficult journey for everyone. But with recent progress, we believe we can reach agreements soon.”
“We realize there is also work to do, together, to rebuild our labor/management partnership and restore the trust that helped us achieve so much together,” Kaiser said.
The unions said: “This fight was never just about wages. This was a fight over what kind of health care organization Kaiser Permanente intends to be — and whether its health care professionals would be empowered to hold it accountable.”
“Kaiser attempted to use money as a hammer — dangling compensation while refusing to engage meaningfully on the staffing and safety issues that registered nurses and health care professionals have been raising for years.” the unions said in a joint statement.
“Four weeks on the picket line was not something 31,000 health care workers did lightly,” the unions said. During the strike, non-emergency procedures were postponed and office hours were scaled back.
The unions listed these accomplishments from the strike:
- Your nurse is actually your nurse: the union fought to end “paper staffing” — Kaiser should not be able to count charge nurses or break relief nurses toward patient ratios. When you’re in a Kaiser facility, the nurse assigned to you should be there for you.
- Dangerous staffing gaps deserve real solutions: a new internal nurse registry to deploy registered nurses to cover short-staffed units — including in the middle of the night, when it matters most.
UNAC/UHCP President Charmaine S. Morales said. “This strike was about Kaiser’s unfair labor practices and its refusal to bargain in good faith on the staffing issues that put patients at risk every single day.”
“We are back inside Kaiser facilities today. Our eyes are open and our commitment to our patients has never been stronger,” Morales said. “We won real protections for our patients, and we will enforce every single one of them. Kaiser now knows that this union is not going away, and that the health care professionals who keep this system running will always put patients first.”
