Around 31,000 Kaiser Permanente Nurses and other health care workers returned to work Tuesday after a four-week strike. The strike ended because there was significant movement at the bargaining table – but a full, finalized contract has not yet been ratified.
Workers said chronic understaffing, increased workloads and wage proposals that do not reflect cost-of-living pressures fueled the strike, which began on January 26. They present the strike as a fight for patient safety, because they I saw up close how inadequate staffing can harm quality of care and patient outcomes.
The workers who went on strike are primarily represented by the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP). Their strike affected 20 hospitals and 200 clinics in California and Hawaii.
This type of labor dispute is not new to Kaiser. This same group of 31,000 workers went on strike as recently as October, when they I was gone for five days on concerns related to staffing, salaries and patient care.
The draft agreement that ended this most recent strike includes several key measures called for by the union. For example, UNAC/UHCP fought to end “paper personnel.”
This is a practice in which charge nurses and relief nurses are counted in patient ratios even though they are not always available to provide direct patient care. The union argued that this artificially inflates staffing levels on paper, but leaves fewer bedside nurses available in practice, contributing to persistent understaffing and heavier workloads.
To further address the understaffing problem, the agreement in principle includes a new internal registry to deploy nurses to understaffed units. The registry creates a pool of Kaiser-employed nurses who can be temporarily reassigned to units requiring more staff, which could allow Kaiser to fill gaps more quickly without relying as much on staff from outside agencies or mandatory overtime.
A significant wage increase is also part of Kaiser’s proposal.
UNAC/UHCP had initially pushed for a 25% salary increase over the four years of the contract, arguing that it was necessary to catch up with inflation and past wage stagnation. Kaiser’s offer was lower, at 21.5 percent, which the union said did not fully meet its members’ needs or match what other unions had obtained. Despite this, after negotiations, UNAC/UHCP decided to accept the 21.5% deal, saying it was part of a broader package that includes real gains for a safer workforce.
In a statement released this week, UNAC/UHCP President Charmaine Morales said the union’s commitment to its patients has never been stronger.
“We went up against a $76 billion organization that tried to silence us with money while ignoring safety. We didn’t let that happen. 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 healthcare professionals who operate this system will always put patients first,” Morales said.
Kaiser called the strike “totally unnecessary” in a statement of his own. The health system added that the union’s acceptance of the 21.5% pay increase is “good progress” that can bring the two sides closer to a contract agreement.
“Our negotiations with UNAC/UHCP and each of the Healthcare Union Alliances continue at local tables. We continue to make progress and remain optimistic that contractual agreements will be reached soon,” a Kaiser spokesperson said.
The end of the strike comes amid a wave of recent victories for nurses’ unions.
On Saturday, approximately 4,200 nurses represented by the New York State Nurses Association ended their 41-day strike in New York Presbyterian Hospital And voted to ratify a new contract with salary increases and improved staff protections. And earlier this month, two other health systems in New York, Mount Sinai And Montefioreput an end to the nurses’ strikes in their establishments by signing new agreements with the same union.
Photo: UNAC/UHCP, Getty Images