Tens of thousands of health care workers have ratified a new four-year contract with industry giant Kaiser Permanente following a strike over wages and staffing levels, the parties announced Thursday.
Of the 85,000 members in the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, 98.5% voted in recent weeks to ratify the contract, the coalition said in a press release. It runs retroactively from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, 2027.
The deal includes setting minimum hourly wages at $25 in California, where recent legislation established a statewide minimum wage for health care workers, and $23 in other states. Workers will also see a 21% wage increase over four years.
The agreement also includes protective terms around subcontracting and outsourcing, as well as initiatives to invest in the current workforce and address the staffing crisis. The workers’ last contract was negotiated in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The agreement follows a three-day strike last month involving 75,000 workers in Oregon, Washington, California and Colorado. Some 180 workers from facilities in Virginia and Washington, D.C., also picketed for one day.
The strikers included vocational nurses, nursing assistants, emergency department technicians, radiology technicians, ultrasound sonographers, respiratory therapists, X-ray technicians, dietary services, behavioral health workers, surgical technicians, pharmacy technicians, transporters, home health aides, phlebotomists, medical assistants, teleservice workers and housekeepers.
Oregon’s role in Kaiser Permanente strike
More than 4,000 health care workers in Oregon and southwest Washington went on strike, according to union representative Alan Dubinsky.
Kaiser pharmacists and pharmacy technicians also went on strike for 21 days in October.
The ratified contract meets the Kaiser worker’s top priorities of wage and staffing increases, Dubinsky said.
“We wanted to have a plan in place to address understaffing and bring the focus back to patients, and I think that’s something we were able to accomplish,” Dubinsky said.
Kaiser’s southwest Washington and Oregon locations in Salem, Keizer, Eugene, Aumsville, McMinnville, Oregon City and the Portland metro area serve about 636,000 patients.
Union members say understaffing has hurt patients by causing long wait times for appointments and rescheduled appointments due to limited capacity.
“Folks have had to put off necessary care,” said Dubinsky.
Union members were urging Kaiser executives to take the staffing crisis and its impact on patients seriously, he said. The ratified contract is a mutually agreed upon plan to get more workers hired and bring patients the quality care they deserve, Dubinsky said.
Both sides said they prioritized patient health care during their talks. Steve Shields, Kaiser’s senior vice president of labor relations, said previously the deal will not affect consumer rates.
“It just goes to show the power of our solidarity when we stand together,” said Dubinsky.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Sydney Wyatt covers healthcare inequities in the Mid-Willamette Valley for the Statesman Journal. Send comments, questions, and tips to her at SWyatt@gannett.com, (503) 399-6613, or on Twitter @sydney_elise44
The Statesman Journal’s coverage of healthcare inequities is funded in part by the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, which seeks to strengthen the cultural, social, educational, and spiritual base of the Pacific Northwest through capacity-building investments in the nonprofit sector.
This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Kaiser Permanente workers secure higher wages after strike
