
In an effort to put further pressure on their employer to address a staffing shortfall that has worsened since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, healthcare employees at hundreds of Kaiser Permanente hospitals and medical institutions across the U.S. staged a walkout on Wednesday morning.
In California, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., more than 75,000 workers went on strike, including nurses, emergency room technicians, pharmacists, and hundreds of others.
According to the unions, it is the largest healthcare strike in American history.
One of the biggest nonprofit healthcare organizations in the US, Kaiser has its headquarters in Oakland, California, and serves around 13 million patients. Except for those in Virginia and Washington, D.C., who will be on strike for 24 hours, the majority of Kaiser employees who have quit their jobs will remain on strike for three days, until Saturday morning.
What this means for patients
The healthcare provider has stated that during the walkout, doctors and other employees will be working in the hospital’s emergency rooms. It claimed to be bringing on board experts who will serve in crucial care jobs throughout the strike.
Patients have been informed by Kaiser that non-emergency and elective services could need to be postponed. Community pharmacies are now part of the organization’s network of pharmacy locations, ensuring that patients have access to their medications in the event that outpatient pharmacies have to temporarily close. Kaiser hospitals’ inpatient pharmacies will remain open.
According to the organization, 60% of Kaiser personnel, including doctors, will continue to work during the walkout.
Staffing shortage
After the continuing United Auto Workers strike and the Hollywood writers’ strike earlier this year, these healthcare professionals are the most important workers to go on strike this year over compensation and working conditions.
The reason for their walkout is a shortage of staff, which they claim has resulted in challenging working conditions that are making it harder to retain Kaiser employees while also causing a decline in the quality of care for Kaiser’s patients.
According to data from Kaiser that the unions got in April of this year, 11% of union positions were empty.
“Healthcare professionals select this line of employment because they are passionate about it. The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions’ executive director, Caroline Lucas, described it as a calling. People also don’t feel comfortable continuing to work in professions where they don’t feel they can provide the greatest patient care possible.
When Kaiser refused to negotiate in good faith to address the staffing crisis, the unions claimed that Kaiser engaged in unfair labor practices. These claims are refuted by Kaiser.
I’m not looking to strike
In order to protect patients, Kaiser has instructed staff members to ignore requests to quit their jobs.
Employees like Brooke El-Amin, a 21-year Kaiser employee, claim that the lack of staff is already having an impact on patient care. The aim of the strike is to put Kaiser under pressure to gradually enhance patient service.
El-Amin stated, “I don’t want to strike. “But I think Kaiser is already failing our patients, as well as the staff,” the speaker continued.
At 6 a.m. local time on Wednesday, pharmacists and optometrists in Washington, D.C., and Virginia went on strike first. Workers in Colorado and the West Coast then joined them.
Soon after the strike started, dozens of Kaiser employees in Virginia’s Springfield Medical Center joined the picket line, buoyed by the momentum of their union.
Clinical pharmacist in Washington, D.C., Keyani Adigun, claimed she struggled to meet patient requests throughout the pandemic as colleagues fled Kaiser in large numbers.
After COVID-19 struck the United States more than three years ago, she said that her company is still not providing enough resources.
Before stepping onto the picket line, Adigun remarked, “I hope that Kaiser leadership hears our voices. We start to see fewer resources as we labor more.
Unreplaced by a new contract, the workers’ contract has ended.
Without a replacement agreement in place, the collective bargaining agreement for workers covered by a coalition of unions ended on September 30. Despite progress on matters like outsourcing and subcontracting protections during meetings over the weekend, the unions and Kaiser officials remain far apart on other sticking areas, including salaries.
According to the SEIU-UHW union in California, the two sides signed a provisional deal on Monday over a 40% boost to an education fund, which will support extra training for staff.
However, the alliance is requesting improved benefits, such as retiree medical care, as well as a nearly 25% wage boost for all of its members. According to the unions, more employees would be encouraged to remain at Kaiser if they received better compensation and working conditions. Additionally, it would draw in younger workers, which would all contribute to easing the employment deficit.
Kaiser has responded thus far with raises that span four years and range from 12.5 to 16%. In a statement, Kaiser also mentioned that it is almost at its target of adding 10,000 new union employees by the end of 2023 to fill openings.
The group emphasized that burnout and staffing difficulties affect Kaiser as well as the whole healthcare sector. Additionally, it claimed that its benefits and compensation packages were superior to others.
Because we came at the pandemic from a different angle than most frontline workers, Kaiser Permanente employees were better able to combat it.
According to Lucas, Kaiser’s promise to increase hiring is a positive move. However, she claimed that the healthcare provider is ignoring the thousands of employees who continually quitting, adding that Kaiser needs to significantly improve compensation to incentivize individuals to remain.