NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS |
November 5, 2021 | PAGE 3
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
Kaiser Permanente in standoff with unions
staffing since their current con-
tract began Oct. 1, 2018.
Holt says members have
made it clear that adequate
staffing and patient care are their
priorities, not money, and “pa-
tients not profits” is emerging as
a key slogan of the deepening
dispute.
“Everything about our pro-
posal is about trying to improve
the staffing conditions so that
patients can get the care that
they need,” Holt said. “That’s
what this fight is about.”
Kaiser has 12 million health
plan members and is technically
a non-profit. But it has amassed
reserves of $44.5 billion, and re-
ported a healthy $2.7 billion in
net revenue since the coron-
avirus pandemic began.
Meanwhile, in what may be
more evidence of ethical rot
among Kaiser executives, the
U.S. Justice Department filed
allegations in federal court Oct.
25 that Kaiser Permanente units
in California and Colorado de-
frauded Medicare by about $1
billion over a number of years
— altering patient medical
records to add diagnoses after
the fact that either didn’t exist or
were unrelated to patient visits,
and billing Medicare for the
fraudulent diagnoses.
Negotiations continue but with-
out much progress as strike au-
thorizations spread to four states.
By Don McIntosh
Leaders of Oregon Federation
of Nurses and Health Profes-
sionals (OFNHP) report no sig-
nificant improvements to Kaiser
Permanente’s bargaining pro-
posals since the unit of 3,400
members voted overwhelm-
ingly in early October to au-
thorize a strike. At press time,
the two sides were still meeting
to negotiate, and the union had
not yet issued a 10-day strike
notice as required for hospitals
under federal law.
OFNHP is part of the Al-
liance of Health Care Unions
(AHCU), a 50,000-member
coalition of 21 unions at Kaiser.
Four other AHCU unions in
California and Hawaii totaling
another 32,500 workers have
also authorized a strike, and an-
other 2,450 in Georgia are in the
process of voting on strike au-
thorization.
Bargaining has rarely been so
contentious at Kaiser, which for
decades touted itself as a union
partner and model employer.
“This partnership is on the
rocks,” said OFNHP bargaining
NINE THOUSAND PAGES. To illustrate the scale of nurse understaffing, OFNHP printed out every short staffing
complaint that members have made since October 2018. Their point: Their contract’s nonbinding promises to im-
prove staffing levels are no longer good enough.
team chair Joshua Holt, a staff
nurse at Kaiser Westside Med-
ical Center in Hillsboro.
In an open provocation to
union members, Kaiser is push-
ing a “two-tier” scheme in
which new hires would be paid
as much as 25% less than cur-
rent members. That’s consid-
ered a union-busting move be-
cause it would divide the
workforce.
“This two tier proposal, in ad-
dition to being anti union, also
exacerbates the staffing crisis,”
Holt said. “What it does is make
sure that we're not going to be
able to get applicants to fill jobs
they’re going to post in the fu-
ture.”
In addition, Kaiser is propos-
ing wage increases of 1% a year
at a moment when inflation is
currently running 5.4%.
OFNHP is proposing raises of
4% a year.
Kaiser also hasn’t agreed to
improve nurse staffing levels, a
key demand of OFNHP and
other unions. Management’s
counter-proposal would actually
worsen staffing levels, Holt
says. On Oct. 28, OFNHP bar-
gaining team members pre-
sented management negotiators
with 9,000 pages of nurse com-
plaints about unsafe staffing lev-
els. Union members have been
documenting instances of short-
UNIONIZATION ] SEP-OCT 2021
The following are Oregon and Southwest Washington workplaces where workers have
decided whether to be represented by a union. The thumbs-up symbol means workers
will be union-represented. Thumbs-down means they’ll be on their own. “Decert” means
union-represented workers voted whether to remain union. The information comes from
the National Labor Relations Board and the Oregon Employment Relations Board.
Union election results
Employer (Location) Union
Yes-No
Providence Willamette Falls Med. Ctr. (Oregon City) ONA
16-5
^
1-2
%
0-0
%
Workers with accepted Workers’ Comp claims
still benefit from having an attorney.
Keep the claim on track. Don’t call too late.
■ 30 registered nurses at an acute care hospital
Safeway (Corvallis) Bakers Local 114
■ 3 production bakers, utility bakers, and cake decorators at 590 NE Circle Blvd.
Safeway (Portland) Bakers Local 114
■ 2 cake decorators at 1100 NE Broadway St.
National Car Rental/Alamo (Portland) Teamsters 305
DECERT
20-15 ^
■ 41 rental agents, bus operators, maintenance techs at Portland airport
Tuality Healthcare (Forest Grove) Oregon AFSCME
9-1
^
45-4
^
13-2
^
■ 16 medical assistants, receptionists, and health plan and panel coordinators
Mid-Columbia Medical Center (The Dalles) OFNHP
Raymond Thomas
James Coon
Cynthia Newton
Chris Frost
■ 72 hospital techs
Wild Lilac (Portland) ILWU Local 5
■ 21 workers at a daycare and preschool at 3829 SE 74th Ave.
Unionization by majority signup
www.tcnf.legal
Employer (Location) Union
Port of Portland (Portland) Port of Portland Police Employees Association
■ 2 police lieutenants
Sydney Montanaro
Scott Sell
Chris Thomas
820 SW Second Ave., Suite 200, Portland, OR 97204