By MALLORY GRUBEN
Union nurses at Kaiser Permanente hospitals in Oregon expected some small paycheck errors when the health care system switched its payroll software in February 2021. But after more than two years of problems — some as egregious as a $99,000 overpayment or completely zeroed out paid leave banks — the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals (OFNHP) is speaking out.
“We have filed grievances. We have escalated this up to senior leadership. We have engaged (the Bureau of Labor and Industries),” said OFNHP Executive Vice President Krista Lehan. “We’ve tried to approach the legislative components, but this is still a battle we are fighting after two and a half years. Our members are still being impacted.”
“We feel like if we don’t raise awareness and really take some affirmative actions around this, it will never get fixed,” she added.
OFNHP represents nearly 6,500 nurses at Kaiser hospitals in Oregon and Southwest Washington. Those workers started reporting paycheck errors shortly after Kaiser switched its payroll and human resources software to a new program called HRConnect. Similar problems have played out in workplaces across Oregon, including at Fred Meyer, Providence Health and Services, and the State of Oregon. Workers at those three employers mostly reported underpayments and have since filed class action lawsuits to try to recoup their lost wages.
The Kaiser nurses have reported underpayments, too, but the more common problem seems to be overpayments, Lehan said. It’s made worse when workers don’t catch the error, and months later Kaiser demands repayment without being able to prove what’s owed.
“You’re getting these notifications saying, ‘Hey, we are going to fire you (if you don’t repay),’ and those letters, quite frankly, are really scary,” said Katie Johnson, a nurse and vice chair of the OFNHP bargaining unit. Johnson also serves as a contract specialist, a role that’s like a union steward who helps workers interpret and enforce the terms of their union contract.
OFNHP asked Kaiser for a group audit of paychecks received on July 23, 2021. The audit covered 177 workers who reported an overpayment. The average overpayment was about $2,000, though the total varied widely. Eight workers received just a penny more than they were owed, and one worker got $99,000 extra for the pay period.
When Kaiser HR tried to claw back those overpayments, they sometimes blamed workers for not catching the problem sooner, Johnson said.
“They would say some pretty condescending things like, ‘You can’t possibly imagine you are getting a paycheck this large,’” Johnson said. “But this was at the height of COVID, so people were working lots of hours.”
Johnson knew of one woman who had seen multiple correct checks around $6,000 because of overtime shifts. When Kaiser told he she owed $6,000 for an overpayment, she was taken aback.
“She truly thought it was what she was owed,” Johnson said. “It was probable.”
More recently, workers have reported missing paid time off that they suspect is caused by HR Connect. Earlier this year, Johnson saw all of her time off wiped from her PTO bank, just as she was getting ready to use it for a short medical leave for kidney stones.
“They were able to get it back for me after calling national HR and having my manager escalate it, but when I first called they said, ‘Oh, it’s going to be about eight weeks for us to rectify this,’” Johnson said. “And I was like, ‘Well I’m having a procedure done. I can’t wait eight weeks.’”
In an email to the Labor Press, Kaiser Northwest spokesperson Debbie Karman said overpayments sometimes happen, but Kaiser Northwest makes “every effort to minimize the impact to our employees.” She added that system errors — essentially problems with the software — account for fewer than 1% of overpayments at Kaiser.
“It’s worth noting that at Kaiser Permanente Northwest, no unresolved employee complaints about overpayments have been brought to our attention at this time,” Karman wrote.
Johnson and Lehan said the number of errors has dropped over time, but workers still report overpayments or missing PTO. Johnson says a wave of errors was reported this summer, and she has email records showing she helped a worker with an ongoing overpayment complaint as recently as Sept. 8.
“Being an employer who cannot properly pay their employees does not give confidence to people who want to work for Kaiser,” Lehan said. “Kaiser should care about that. When we are struggling to hire people and find good talent, this should be a high priority to fix because it looks bad on their reputation.”
THERE OUGHTA BE A LAW …
Earlier this year, OFNHP asked Oregon lawmakers to pass House Bill 2556 to set a 90-day limit for when employers could ask for overpayments to be refunded. A similar law already exists in Washington and has helped some of the Kaiser workers affected by the payroll errors. Lawmakers in the state House of Representatives passed the bill 35-19, but it never got a vote in the Senate Labor and Business Committee. OFNHP hopes the bill will be reintroduced in the next legislative session.
