SEIU 49 ratifies pact at Kaiser Permanente

Members of Portland-based Service Employees Local 49 have "strongly approved" a new two-year contract with the Kaiser Permanente health maintenance organization. The union did not release the vote count.

The new pact calls for across-the-board wage increases of 3 percent each year for the 2,200 union members, as well as improvements in pension, short-term disability and an education fund. The contract covers employees at one Kaiser hospital in Portland and more than 30 clinics in Oregon and southwest Washington. Job duties range from cooks and housekeepers to licensed practical nurses and medical and dental aides.

The contract ratification actually came one month before the old contract expires - a rarity in Kaiser bargaining, said Local 49 Financial Secretary Rick Henson. In 1997, Local 49 members struck for 33 days before coming to terms on their current contract. Henson credited a two-year-old national partnership task force with the AFL-CIO and Kaiser Permanente, as well as a new style of "interest-based bargaining," for the productive negotiations and quick contract ratification.

"It helped, too, that they didn't come to the table demanding takeaways," Henson said. Interest-based bargaining is a method in which both sides try to determine early on what their common interests are and then work together to develop solutions to meet those interests.

Negotiations actually opened with a "pre-agreement" in which labor and management agreed to limit bargaining issues to five items each (not including economics) and to complete their talks in five meetings. Union members approved the pre-agreement in a vote taken prior to the start of negotiations.

"It actually took us seven meetings to finalize the deal," Henson explained. "But no bargaining session lasted longer than 10 hours. In the 1997 strike year, sessions lasted 23 to 28 hours."

Shelley Herochik, field service coordinator for Local 49, served as a co-facilitator in the interest-based bargaining, alongside an organization-effectiveness consultant from Kaiser. The two facilitators then worked with the bargaining teams from both sides to pare contract issues to 10 items. From there they broke into teams - each with five issues to find consensus on.

"Our stated goal was to work with Kaiser to grow its market share and to remain competitive," Herochik said. "If Kaiser loses market share that's not good for employees...our members."

Henson said that in addition to wage and benefit increases, the new contract contains improved language to allow employees more input on staffing levels, hiring and new-worker orientation through a worksite Health and Safety Committee. "Previously, those were management programs," he said.

As the local contract was being ratified, international labor unions, the AFL-CIO and Kaiser Permanente continue to meet regularly on a national partnership agreement.

That task force includes Henson and Kathy Schmidt, president of the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Care Professionals, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers. Schmidt is a registered nurse at Kaiser Sunnyside.

Discussions nationally are focusing on setting workplace standards such as employment security, discipline, discharge, and issues resolutions. Once agreement is reached on those standards they may become guidelines for local bargaining and could eventually lead to national bargaining for all unions with members at Kaiser Permanente facilities.