AFL-CIO Nurses win organizing drive at Kaiser

Oregon's biggest union organizing win in over a year came about Jan. 24 - without so much as an election.

On that day, union and management representatives stood by at Kaiser Permanente's Mt. Scott Medical Office while a stack of signed authorization cards was checked against a list of eligible employees. The result: 472 workers in 14 professional classifications at 22 locations in Kaiser Permanente Northwest are now members of Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals (OFNHP) Local 5017.

Not only does the new unit increase OFNHP's size by nearly a third, but the campaign to organize it was remarkable on a number of grounds, union leaders say.

The unit consists of categories of workers that are fairly new to unions - physicians' assistants, nurse practitioners, dietitians and at least eight classes of therapists and counselors. Overwhelmingly, these workers see themselves as professionals, with a degree of status and autonomy second only to doctors in the hierarchy of health care workers.

"Organizing professionals is challenging," said OFNHP President Kathy Schmidt, "but they are as interested in increasing their voice in the workplace as any group I've worked with."

OFNHP already represented 1,591 nurses, dental hygienists and technicians in the Kaiser system, so workers in the new unit were familiar with the union.

What made the campaign especially unusual though was the utter lack of opposition from management, the result of a national neutrality agreement between Kaiser and its unions. Under the agreement, management adheres to a strict neutrality during union drives, and agrees to recognize a union if the majority of workers in a unit sign authorization cards (rather than insisting on a vote).

Unlike many health care systems which hire anti-union consultants and campaign against unions, Kaiser allows organizers to meet employees at the work site during breaks and off-hours.

Schmidt said she knows of no other employer in the United States that has maintained as thorough a neutrality. "They did an exemplary job of remaining neutral all the way through the management structure."

Even with the neutrality, it took two-and-a-half full time staff organizers since last spring to sign up about 60 percent of the unit. They were helped in organizing by workers' frustration with increasing patient loads.

"Kaiser has been trying to provide more patient care for less money, and the health professionals are getting crunched," said OFNHP organizer Kristin Wessel.

"Some nurse practitioners are seeing a patient every 15 minutes. Health providers have to decide whether to limit the time they spend with patients or work a ton of overtime. I talked with physical therapists who have worked 10 to 12 hours a day for eight years."

Wessel said health care professionals at Kaiser have tried to adapt to increased pressure in health care by working overtime, working faster, harder, better. "They've been trying to find individual solutions to systemic problems, and they reach a point where they can't add any more."

Because of this, Wessel stresses, unionizing will benefit patient care as well, since, under a historic nationwide partnership agreement announced in September, workers and managers will share decision-making about issues like staffing levels.

OFNHP is an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, which has a division in health care. In organizing the new group at Kaiser, the Oregon local was helped by funds from the national union.

About 5,000 workers have been organized at Kaiser across the country since management agreed to neutrality/card-check in 1997. The Portland unit was one of the last groups of unrepresented health care professionals in the Kaiser system.

OFNHP will now focus on getting contracts for the new unit and a smaller unit of medical techs that joined in September. Then, Schmidt said, the union will turn its attention to organizing other Oregon health care companies. The new Kaiser contract is the envy of non-union nurses and health professionals in facilities like Providence and Legacy.