2020 was amongst the most difficult years for all healthcare workers in recent memory, and that continued into 2021 when we fought at the bargaining table for basic resources and respect. We had o have PPE shortages, management disregarded workplace safety policies, we were asked to be implausibly flexible by people who don’t do our jobs. We endured severe mental and physical trauma as a direct result of caring for patients sick with COVID-19. Some of us were completely isolated from our families. Some of us ended up in ICUs as patients. Some of us didn’t make it, as a result of deaths from illness or death by suicide, and injuries and violence skyrocketed.
The pandemic pushed so many of us to our breaking points asn we entered into Kaiser Permanente contract bargaining in April 2021. While we know ultimately our strike was diverted and we won many new additions and had no take-aways to our union contracts, we cannot forget what Kaiser tried to do and what it took to push them back. It’s worth taking a second to remember what that battle actually looked like, what was at stake, and what it took to win.
What Kaiser Wanted
Kaiser wanted to make major rollbacks to the wages and benefits that healthcare workers need to care for our families, as well as to do little to fix the inequities that were threatening our safety on the job. This took the form of offering a two-tier wage structure, which would mean that new employees would end up on a different wage schedule than current employees and would make much less. This is a classic anti-union tactic that is used to erode not just a bargaining unit, but an entire industry’s professional standards. The two-tier pay structure used to undermine the American auto industry and unions like the United Auto Workers (UAW), and now Kaiser, a supposedly union-friendly employer, was making this proposal their bottom line.
Kaiser also offered a meager 1% raise, something that, considering the skyrocketing cost of living and inflation, meant that we would effectively be receiving a pay cut. This was happening at a time when many of us were not even receiving wages competitive to our field and where we were understaffed, in part, because the low wages on offer were not enough to attract and retain qualified staff. This has caused huge amounts of turnover, something that creates instability for the future of patient care and increasingly difficult working conditions for the healthcare staff that have stuck around.
Kaiser was also turning up their nose at additional proposals to establish viable staffing standards, to confront racial inequities for healthcare workers, or to deal with the skyrocketing cost of student debt. Kaiser had made their position clear, and they were not budging.
“KP is proposing we shortchange the incoming generation of workers. We won’t let our teams be undermined by a two-tier system that will permanently put all new hires on a lower wage scale,” said then OFNHP President Jodi Barshow when these proposals came in. “We are committed to equal pay for equal work. We need to attract the best and brightest to care for our patients, especially with the shortages and unfilled vacancies.”
What Did We Do
We knew that if we didn’t put up an unprecedented fight, then we would lose not just on the issues that mattered in 2021, but in our ability to maintain the integrity of the future of the healthcare we deliver. We got organized and developed an aggressive organizing and communications plan, both locally and nationally.
Along with the over 50,000 members of the Alliance we did a series of escalating actions in direct coordination, including running petitions, pledge signings, sticker actions, and social media storms. We made sure that the public heard our side of the story and that we dominated any discussions of what was happening at Kaiser. We collected and shared member stories, using social media, print fliers, and other ways of ensuring that we could hear each other’s experiences and that the public knew what we were going through.
Locally we got creative, and held a car demonstration where members decorated their vehicles and drove them in a procession in front of the building. This was an opportunity to take offline action while also remaining safe during the COVID spike. We trained our members to speak to the media and earned an unheard of number of stories featuring our union, over 150 in total ranging from local press to international news agencies. We joined television broadcasts, podcasts and radio shows, and penned op-eds that ran in newspapers. We were everywhere, and we outpaced Kaiser in our ability to set the media’s agenda.
All of this led to a massive end of summer rally in front of the Kaiser Permanente Building where we had 800 members and supporters who shouted down Kaiser’s disastrous proposals. Our member leaders spoke out, as well as allies from Oregon AFL-CIO, Jobs With Justice, ONA, and other unions, and we were supported by patients and workers from across the city. We were even joined by Scabby, the inflatable rat that the engineering union brought to show that we would not tolerate any strike breaking workers.
When it was time to strike we did the most important work we needed to, going worker to worker to make sure everyone’s voice was heard and that we had unity on what happened next. We did strike pledges across the summer and then, in October, we held a strike vote where our members chose to go on strike by 97%. We trained other unions and those workers who could not strike how to monitor and report mistakes by strike breaking workers, and we spread fliers around to let those travelers, who were being paid several times what regular employees are paid to do the same work, that crossing the picket line would cause them major problems.
What Happened Next
After we did all of that, Kaiser began to make movement, and they dropped their two-tier pay proposal and upped the wage agreements to what we ended up receiving. We won a number of other additions to this contract including an 8% wage increase over the life of the contract plus 2% bonuses for 2022 and 2023, as well as additional increases at some local tables. We aligned our benefits to the national standard to make sure that everyone in the Alliance was receiving what they needed to, as well as justice for incoming union members. We got increases to the Ben Hudnall educational trust, kept our PSP payouts, won a Joint Affordability Task Force, provisions for patient and worker safety and a better dispute resolution process.
As in every contract fight, there are things we had to compromise on and others we did not win, and that’s why we have gotten more organized than ever. We know, from experience, that what it takes to fight back an onslaught is unprecedented unity, solidarity, and a commitment to taking action. That is why we are getting organized now for a fight that starts in spring 2025, so that we have our teams ready and our plans in place. Our union is built on three principles: mutual aid, solidarity, and direct action, and that is exactly how we won in 2021.
If we want to emerge with the same level of strength in 2025, and to win even more victories in our next contract, it is going to require all of us. It’s unclear what Kaiser will come for this time, but we know that they are going to push back on our fight for workplace and healthcare justice. Our bargaining surveys showed that defending retirement, working towards safe staffing, ensuring union security and growth (including aligning our contract expiration dates), and higher wages are the top priority for our bargaining process. Kaiser executives make decisions based on how much money they can make while our motivations are much more simple: we want good patient care and dependable jobs. Now is the time to get connected with the emerging Contract Action Team (CAT), talk to your coworkers, and even become a steward!
Let’s make 2025 the year when we show Kaiser that when they try to undermine healthcare professionals, they are the ones who lose.