Roughly 44,600 Kaiser Permanente workers in four states began a five-day strike Oct. 14 after months of local and national bargaining failed to produce a new collective bargaining agreement. The strike is set to last through 7 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 19. It includes about 4,000 Kaiser workers in Oregon and Southwest Washington who are represented by Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals (OFNHP) — nurses, laboratory workers, and professional employees like social workers and physical therapists.
OFNHP is part of the Alliance of Health Care Unions, which bargains a national contract on behalf of 62,000 Kaiser workers. The Alliance is proposing raises totaling 25% over four years, while Kaiser is proposing raises totaling 21.5% over four years.
Kaiser called the union proposal “out of step with today’s economic realities” in a press statement the day before the strike.
Strikers see pay increases as part of the solution to staff shortages that are affecting quality of care.
“When we speak up about patient safety, about preventing clinician burnout, we’re met with silence,” said striking physician associate Josh Oppenheim at an Oct. 14 rally outside Kaiser’s Sunnyside Medical Center. “And that silence is deafening.”
Also striking besides OFNHP are more than 30,000 workers represented by United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals, 8,600 workers represented by United Steel Workers Local 7600 in California, and 2,000 workers represented by UNITE HERE Local 5 and Hawaii Nurses and Healthcare Professionals.
“We are not walking out on our patients,” said OFNHP president Sarina Roher at the Oct. 14 strike rally. “We are simply standing up for them.”
SEE MORE STRIKE IMAGES HERE.
