Kaiser Permanente contract negotiations are heating up after the healthcare system retracted a tentative agreement on successorship.
The Alliance of Healthcare Unions, a group of 22 unions representing more than 62,000 Kaiser workers, is bargaining a national contract. At the same time, individual unions are bargaining local contracts. Oregon Federation of Nurses & Health Professionals (OFNHP) represents nearly 4,500 Kaiser lab professionals, nurses, professional staff, dental hygienists, and technical staff in Oregon and Southwest Washington.
In July, OFNHP and Kaiser had reached tentative agreement on successorship language, which would ensure that if Kaiser sold off parts of its operation, the existing union and contract would carry over to the new employer. Some of the OFNHP units already have successorship agreements, but the tentative agreement would have applied to all OFNHP-represented units.
A few days after reaching that agreement, Kaiser’s bargaining team walked it back.
Rhea Hindemit, chair of the OFNHP technical unit, said that bad-faith bargaining suggests Kaiser isn’t putting the right people on the bargaining table.
“If it was decided above them that they shouldn’t have agreed to it, then why are those the people at the table bargaining with us?” Hindemit said.
Kaiser’s about-face is also igniting concerns that the company may intend to sell.
“Kaiser’s action has dramatically set back negotiations and increased the likelihood of a strike,” Alliance executive director Hal Ruddick told the crowd at an Aug. 7 rally in downtown Portland.
Josh Oppenheim, a Kaiser physician associate currently on leave to work for the union, said his professional unit is currently considered exempt from overtime, but the union is proposing they be paid for all hours worked. Increases to patient loads, documentation, and required training are pushing physician associates and nurse practitioners to work well beyond the hours they’re paid for, Oppenheim said. The union is also seeking raises to keep up with inflation and to keep up with union nurses, who are winning substantial raises around the country.
Physician associates and nurse practitioners are in an odd spot between nurses and doctors, Oppenheim said. They have more training — and more college debt — than nurses, and in some settings in Oregon, they have largely the same responsibilities as doctors while making far less.
Locally, the Alliance of Healthcare Unions also includes International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 28, which represents Kaiser security officers. A separate coalition of 12 other Kaiser unions — the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions — includes Portland-area service and clerical workers represented by SEIU Local 49. Tigard-headquartered UFCW Local 555 represents pharmacy workers in Oregon and Southwest Washington, but isn’t a part of either coalition.
Kaiser operates in eight states across the country, with its largest presence in California.
Kaiser and the Alliance met in Portland for a week of negotiations in early August, bargaining the national contract outside of California for the first time.
“We are not just the Kaiser of California. We are a Kaiser that is national, and the Alliance is national, and we have people everywhere. It’s just about time that we really represented that during bargaining,” Hindemit said.
“In these negotiations, we are demanding historic pay increases to make up for inflation and ensure we have the staffing we need for quality patient care,” Ruddick told the rally crowd Aug. 7. “You are underpaid, you are overworked, you are short staffed, and it is time for Kaiser to make it right. And if Kaiser doesn’t want to make it right. We will force them to make it right. We are ready to fight. We are ready to strike.”
