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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (April 6, 2018)
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | April 6, 2018 | PAGE 9 ...Kaiser Permanente union coalition splits in two From Page 1 Oregon and Southwest Wash- ington. As a health maintenance or- ganization (HMO), Kaiser Per- manente combines features of an insurance company and a hospital system. It operates in eight states — California, Col- orado, Georgia, Hawaii, Ore- gon, Washington, Maryland, Virginia — and in Washington, DC. It’s also the most heavily unionized large health care em- ployer in the nation — and the site of a unique “partnership” agreement in which unions and employer commit to a collabo- rative relationship. The unions that are leaving have good relationships with Kaiser, and say they want to pre- serve that partnership. They are affiliates of seven international unions — AFSCME, United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW), United Steel Workers, American Federation of Teach- ers (AFT), Teamsters, Operating Engineers, and International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) — plus an inde- pendent union called Kaiser Per- manente Nurse Anesthetists As- sociation (KPNAA). The unions that remain are af- filiates of four international unions: SEIU, Office and Pro- fessional Employees Interna- tional Union (OPEIU), UNITE HERE, and International Feder- ation of Professional & Techni- cal Engineers (IFPTE). Twenty years of labor unity come to a close The split is the first major rift among participating unions since the CKPU union coalition formed in 1996. Back then, Kaiser was in deep financial trouble, and had a history of conflict with its unions. All that changed with the creation in 1997 of what all sides touted as a historic “Labor Management Partnership” between Kaiser Clergy call for new contract at Nabisco, and against outsourcing jobs to Mexico By Mark Gruenberg Press Associates Inc. Faith leaders from around the country are urging Dirk Van der Put, the new CEO of Mondelez International, Nabisco’s parent firm, to negotiate in good faith and reach a new and fair con- tract with Bakery, Confec- and the CKPU. Now in its 21st year, it’s the largest, longest-run- ning and most comprehensive labor-management partnership in the United States. The part- nership gives front-line employ- ees a say in decisions that affect them. Self-directed work teams come up with ways to improve performance and reduce waste. And under the rules of the part- nership, bargaining is supposed to be “interest-based” and col- laborative, not “position-based” and adversarial. But the unity of the labor side of the partner- ship began to come undone in recent months. At a meeting of CKPU unions in August 2017 in Portland, SEIU-UHW pushed for a change to the CKPU’s bylaws to give more de- cision-making weight to unions based on their size. CKPU’s decision-making process had always before been based on consensus among its constituent unions—even though they varied in size from dozens to tens of thousands of members. CKPU had negotiated five national collective bargain- ing agreements with Kaiser us- ing that process. Though the discussion report- edly devolved into a shouting match at times, participating unions agreed to a compromise that gave somewhat greater weight to larger unions. Then, according to several sources, SEIU-UHW asked Kaiser to bargain with them as the sole representative of the Coalition. Kaiser refused. In November, SEIU-UHW filed a prospective ballot initia- tive in California that would have prohibited Kaiser from raising its premiums until its capital reserves drop below a certain level. The initiative made no distinction between Kaiser and insurance compa- nies: It counted Kaiser’s hospi- tals and medical offices as capi- tal reserves. Kaiser management said for SEIU-UHW to promote such a measure violated the terms of its partnership deal, and announced that it would bar SEIU-UHW from taking part in the 2018 Coalition bargaining. On Feb. 6, 2018, SEIU-UHW withdrew the initiative. It also signed an agreement with Kaiser and the unions agree- ing not to file hostile legisla- tion in the fu- ture. And it was on track to once again take part in bargaining once again. From Feb- ruary 14 to early March 9, in advance of the scheduled be- ginning of CKPU’s national contract bargaining, SEIU- UHW held a series of 32 protest demonstrations at Kaiser loca- tions across California. The message: Kaiser is thriving fi- nancially, with net revenue of $3.8 billion last year, yet still plans to outsource some jobs and cut wage rates for some new hires. The final straw was a March 19 meeting of the coalition unions, at which SEIU UHW brought up the decision-making process again, threatening to block agreement if it wasn’t re- vised further. Enghouse, the OFNHP presi- dent, says it became apparent then that the unions were not go- ing to be a cohesive team. The labor-management partnership is complicated even when it’s functioning, Enghouse said; with unions at odds, it would make no sense to begin. Reacting to the announce- ment that the 22 local unions are leaving, SEIU Locals 49 in Port- land and 105 in Colorado issued statements faulting the exiting unions for not giving members a chance to vote on that deci- sion. Local 49 also expressed disappointment “in the lack of solidarity from the other union leaders in the Northwest.” Though five SEIU locals re- main in the partnership, the ran- cor felt by the departing unions toward SEIU-UHW doesn’t ap- pear to extend to other SEIU lo- cals, such as Local 49 in Oregon and 1199 in Washington. “Our members work side by side and care about each other,” Enghouse said. “We will always stand by SEIU Local 49 in their striving to get a good contract.” Local 49 president Meg Niemi expressed similar senti- ments in a statement emailed to the Labor Press: “We care about all the union members of Kaiser Permanente and we hope the unions that left will reunite with our coalition because we know we’re stronger together. That said, we want SEIU 49 mem- bers to be clear that they voted to join the coalition 20 years ago, and the only way our union will leave the coalition is that if members vote to make that de- cision.” One other major Kaiser union — California Nurses Associa- tion (CNA) — was never a part of the CKPU. CNA, now part of the National Nurses United union, just came to terms March 20 on a new five-year agree- ment with Kaiser that provides raises of 12 percent to 19,000 registered nurses and nurse practitioners. CKPU’s current national con- tract, negotiated in 2015, expires Sept. 30, 2018. The new Alliance of Health Care Unions is drafting a consti- tution and expects to formalize its structure within a few weeks. —Don McIntosh tionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers union (BCTGM), which represents 2,000 unionized Nabisco workers at six plants in the U.S., including one in Port- land, Oregon represented by Bakers Local 364. The union has waged a publicity campaign against Nabisco for shutting the Oreo cookie line at its South Side Chicago plant almost two years ago and moving 600 jobs to Mexico. The clergy wrote a letter to the CEO after a Mondelez exec- utive forecast even more pro- duction of their top snack and cookie lines will take place at their new plant a mile outside Monterrey, Mexico. There, workers toil behind a barbed wire fence. They are bused to and from a residential com- pound, and earn a dollar a day, according to a recent report by Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ). “Based on the social teach- ings of our faith groups, we be- lieve Mondelez has a moral re- sponsibility to treat its workers with dignity and respect,” the clergy said in their public letter, asking for further clerical sup- port nationwide. “We call on Mondelez to ne- gotiate a new contract with BCTGM that maintains health care benefits and a pension plan that would maintain retirement Unions leaving the Kaiser coalition: 22 locals 37,102 members AFSCME United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP) Hawaii Government Employees Association (AFSCME Local 152) Teamsters Local 166 International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE): Local 501, Local 1 United Steelworkers of America (USW) Local 7600 United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW): Local 770, Local 324, Local 135, Local 1428, Local 1442, Local 1167, Local 555, Local 21, Local 27 , Local 1996, Local 7, and Local 400 Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals (OFNHP), AFT Healthcare Local 5017 International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 28 Kaiser Permanente Nurse Anesthetists Association (KPNAA) Unions staying in the Kaiser coalition: 13 locals 70,700 members International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Local 20 Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU): Local 29, Local 30, Local 8, Local 2, and Local 50 (Hawaii Nurses Association) Service Employees International Union (SEIU): United Healthcare Workers West, Local 121RN, Local 49, Local 1199NW, and Local 105. UNITE HERE Local 5 security for the workers. Fur- thermore, jobs should not be outsourced to Mexico as a way to evade the promises made by your company to workers in the U.S.,” the letter concludes. Ten faith leaders, including a rabbi, an imam, and two who are BCTGM members, including Pastor Lamar Kennedy, who is a member of Local 364 in Port- land, signed the appeal to other clergy.
