Over 75,000 Kaiser Permanente workers are planning to strike from October 4 through 7. The strike will take place at hundreds of Kaiser Permanente facilities across California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Virginia, and Washington DC.
The strike is planned if a deal with the health care giant isn’t reached before the coalitions of unions’ current contract expires on September 30. The unions and Kaiser failed to reach an agreement on pay, staffing, and other issues. The unions say understaffing has led to dangerous wait times for patients.
Kaiser Permanente said in a statement, “We will continue to bargain in good faith until we reach a fair and equitable agreement”. They added, “Every health care provider in the nation has been facing staffing shortages and fighting burnout”.
Employed by Kaiser for 27 years, ultrasound technician Michael Ramey said the job he once loved is “heart-breaking” and “stressful” due to a staffing crisis that he and his colleagues argue harms both employee morale and patient treatment.
“You don’t have the ability to care for patients in the manner they deserve,” said Ramey, 57, who works at a Kaiser clinic in San Diego and is president of his local union. “We are willing to do whatever it takes to ensure we have a contract in place that allows us to be staffed at the levels where we need to be.”
Worker fatigue also takes a toll. “People are working more hours than they want to be working, and even that creates a problem with patient care — if you know you’re going to miss your kid’s soccer game,” he gave as an example.
Interacting with patients, Ramey fields complaints of not being able to schedule medical procedures in a timely fashion. “They are telling you how long it took to get the appointment, and then you have to tell them how long it will be to get results,” Ramey said. “There’s a breakdown in the quality of care. These are people in our communities.”
For Stockton, California, resident and Kaiser pharmacy technician Savonnda Blaylock, the community includes her 70-year-old mother, who struggled to get an appointment for an emergency scan of a blockage in her colon. “This staffing crisis is coming into our living rooms right now,” Blaylock said.
“If we have to walk off, it impacts not just my mom but a lot of patients,” said Blaylock, 51, who has worked 22 years for Kaiser and, like Ramey, has a seat at the bargaining table. Still, her mom and others understand that “our patients are why we’re doing it,” she said of the potential strike.
“Every health care provider in the nation has been facing staffing shortages and fighting burnout,” and Kaiser Permanente “is not immune,” Kaiser Permanente said in an emailed statement.
Kaiser and the coalition agreed in prior bargaining to hire 10,000 people for coalition-represented jobs by the end of the year, a goal the company expects to reach by the end of October, if not sooner. “We are committed to addressing every area of staffing that is still challenging,” it said.
