On Monday, June 3rd, over 20 nurses and supporters marched on their boss to demand an end to wage theft and timecard irregularities that have gone unaddressed for weeks. After their steward council meeting, having already confronted HR, KP workers assembled at Kaiser Sunnyside and marched on their boss.
“Multiple RN staff have been underpaid to this day, and we find this unacceptable,” read Jennifer Kaley to Adam Van Den Avyle, the overseeing hospital administrator. For months, people’s paychecks have been incorrect: sometimes, their overtime or increased pay rates were downgraded to straight time, and other times, they were simply incorrect. After having notified everyone responsible about the problems and going through the appropriate Partnership channels, the department decided it was time to take action.
This began by getting nearly 100% of the unit to sign a petition, which Kaley and her team of RN supporters delivered to Van Den Avyle and demanded that this be solved immediately. In front of this team of OFNHP members, Van Den Avyle admitted that getting the correct pay was the most important thing Kaiser management could do and that he would start working on it that day.
“I came out here today to support our bargaining units and the nurses in this department who had issues with their pay and timecards, and we believe collective action is the best way forward,” says RN Vice-Chair Mindy Schiebler, who supported the action that day. “This is the second march on the boss we’ve done with Adam, the boss we delivered this petition to, and we hope to see results.”
These issues only become more important to address as we get closer to 2025’s Kaiser bargaining season, as our units prepare strength on the shop floor so that we can take the kinds of public actions necessary to fight back austerity from Kaiser leadership and for a voice for healthcare workers. We can shift the balance of power away from management and back onto workers by coming together and taking these actions that we could not achieve alone. This is the change that is necessary not just to win on paycheck issues like those facing SPA/PACU but all the problems we incur at work every day.
“For me, it’s bringing back the human element of it. When management takes actions towards us, such as neglecting our pay, they are actually taking those actions against people,” says Mary Coffelt, another RN Bargaining Unit Co-Chair. “As a nurse for thirty-three years, I know that nurses before me held actions just like this to make sure my workplace was safe.”