By Jake Johnson

Common Dreams

Sept. 5, 2023

"We are prepared to do whatever it takes, even get arrested in an act of civil disobedience, to stand up for our patients," said one Kaiser Permanente worker.

Dozens of healthcare workers were arrested in Los Angeles on Monday after sitting in the street outside of a Kaiser Permanente facility to demand that providers address dangerously low staffing levels at hospitals in California and across the country.

The civil disobedience came as the workers prepared for what could be the largest healthcare strike in U.S. history. Late last month, 85,000 Kaiser Permanente employees represented by the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions began voting on whether to authorize a strike over the nonprofit hospital system's alleged unfair labor practices during ongoing contract negotiations.

The current contract expires on September 30.

"We are burnt out, stretched thin, and fed up after years of the pandemic and chronic short staffing," Datosha Williams, a service representative at Kaiser Permanente South Bay, said Monday. "Healthcare providers are failing workers and patients, and we are at crisis levels in our hospitals and medical centers."

"Our employers take in billions of dollars in profits, yet they refuse to safely staff their facilities or pay many of their workers a living wage," Williams added. "We are prepared to do whatever it takes, even get arrested in an act of civil disobedience, to stand up for our patients."

Kaiser Permanente reported nearly $3.3 billion in net income during the first half of 2023. In 2021, Kaiser CEO Greg Adams brought in more than $16 million in total compensation.

According to the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, the hospital system "has investments of $113 billion in the U.S. and abroad, including in fossil fuels, casinos, for-profit prisons, alcohol companies, military weapons, and more."

Healthcare workers, meanwhile, say they're being overworked and underpaid, and many are struggling to make ends meet amid high costs of living.

"We have healthcare employees leaving left and right, and we have corporate greed that is trying to pretend that this staffing shortage is not real," Jessica Cruz, a nurse at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center, toldLAist.

"We are risking arrest, and the reason why we're doing it is that we need everyone to know that this crisis is real," said Cruz, who was among the 25 workers arrested during the Labor Day protest.

A recent survey of tens of thousands of healthcare workers across California found that 83% reported understaffing in their departments, and 65% said they have witnessed or heard of care being delayed or denied due to staff shortages.

Additionally, more than 40% of the workers surveyed said they feel pressured to neglect safety protocols and skip breaks or meals due to short staffing.

"It's heartbreaking to see our patients suffer from long wait times for the care they need, all because Kaiser won't put patient and worker safety first," Paula Coleman, a clinical laboratory assistant at Kaiser Permanente in Englewood, Colorado, said in a statement late last month. "We will have no choice but to vote to strike if Kaiser won't bargain in good faith and let us give patients the quality care they deserve."

A local NBC affiliate reported Monday that 99% of Colorado Kaiser employees represented by SEIU Local 105 have voted to authorize a strike.

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Mass layoffs have been announced for workers in the fast food and healthcare industries in California in response to two bills that will raise minimum wages for workers in both industries. Wages in the fast food industry go to $20 an hour this year, and healthcare workers’ wages rise to between $18 - $23 an hour in the next year. Fast food chain Pizza Hut, operated by PacPizza, LLC, recently announced its plan to lay off more than 1,200 workers across California, as outlined in a federal WARN Act notice filed by the chain in December 2023. The layoffs reflect the ongoing social crisis in California, the country’s most populous state, as workers struggle to afford the high cost of living.  Soon after passage of the minimum wage bill, Kaiser Permanente, one of California’s largest healthcare worker employers, also announced its decision to lay off 115 of its IT workers.  Starting in April 2024, the minimum wage for California fast food workers will increase from $16 an hour to $20 an hour, a 30 percent increase that has faced increasing backlash from the corporations, who are seeking to avoid paying a living wage to their workers under the legislation.

Friendly reminder regarding strikes

When the media cries about how the 'strikes could hurt the economy' - the correct response is, "I guess they're essential workers and should be PAID A LIVING WAGE."

Hey Walmart employees, you paying attention?

Non-paywalled version here.

"Tens of thousands of workers at Kaiser Permanente hospitals and clinics across the country will soon vote on whether to authorize a strike, union officials announced Thursday.

The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, which includes a dozen local unions with members in seven states and the District of Columbia, said voting would begin Saturday [August 26] and extend into the middle of September. Any strike would start no earlier than Oct. 1.

More than 80,000 employees are represented by the coalition, which counts among its members a wide range of hospital and clinic workers including nursing assistants, phlebotomists, pharmacy technicians and housekeepers. The coalition said that it represents roughly 40% of the overall Kaiser Permanente workforce.

Union leaders said that if a strike moves forward, it would be the largest strike of healthcare workers in the history of the country. They faulted Kaiser for inadequate and unsafe staffing and said the healthcare giant had failed to bargain with them in good faith by refusing to provide them with crucial information during negotiations, among other unfair labor practices.

“Patient care is in crisis at Kaiser Permanente,” said Linda Bridges, president of one of the unions in the coalition, OPEIU Local 2in Silver Spring, Md. “Staffing was decimated during the pandemic and it has not gotten any better. The problem we’re dealing with is Kaiser is not hearing us.

“Kaiser can and must do better. ... They need to stop the unfair labor practices and address the healthcare staffing needs now.”

Regan, the SEIU-UHW president, said the coalition has proposed a $25 hourly minimum wage for its members across the Kaiser Permanente system, saying that “you cannot take care of a family in Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Honolulu” on $19 to $21 an hour. He said Kaiser had recently proposed a much lower minimum — $21 an hour — in 2026."

-via Los Angeles Times, August 24, 2023

Note: Also, if you have Kaiser and you've been putting off any doctors appointments, uh...you might want to make those asap.

"Picketers across California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington who are represented by a coalition of unions walked off the job Wednesday. They are seeking higher wages and solutions to a short-staffing crisis, exacerbated by the pandemic, that has left workers feeling overburdened and run down."

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My doctor is literally cutting off my pain meds. Because I annoyed her. I have one refill left. So I'm supposed to do all the tapering myself?? Yeah that worked GREAT last time

I Support the Strike.

Kaiser acknowledged its staffing challenges in a statement but argued the issue has affected health care providers nationwide.

“Every health care provider in the nation has been facing staffing shortages and fighting burnout. During the Great Resignation in 2021-22, more than 5 million people left their health care jobs across the country. Up to two-thirds of health care staff are saying they are burnt out and more than 1 in 5 are quitting,” the company said in a statement. “Kaiser Permanente is not immune from these challenges.”

Exactly. And if you want to keep the people you have, start treating them better.

BTW, the Kaiser CEO is paid $18m/year in salary. Kaiser is technically a non-profit. On what planet does anyone—literally anyone—need to be paid $18m/year?

No executive of any company can economically justify needing to be paid more than 10x their lowest-paid worker. Not the average worker, of which he’s pushing close to 100x, the lowest paid.

10x is reasonable. It’s enough to live very, very comfortably, and if your lowest paid worker can afford to put a roof over their head, it’s enough to live in luxury.

as much as i am stressing about life in the u.s. taking a major downturn on multiple fronts, i am super proud of everyone going on strike. i hope this momentum stays.

i don’t care if my quality of life gets worse because people are striking for basic rights and a sustainable income. i do care if it’s at the hands of greedy af corporations and corrupt government. the people have to take back what’s rightfully theirs and it will make life a bit harder in the interim. i’d rather have an actual democracy over enjoying “business as usual”.

Here's the first actually cool ad I've gotten:

This is from a union in the Portland (OR) Metro Area. Phamacists represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555 are going on strike due to Kaiser Permanente's unfair labor practices, including "failing to provide information regarding bargaining and grievances, attempting to directly deal with our members, and attempting to dictate to the Union who may serve as its representative". If you live in the Metro Area, the locations they're picketing are on their website here:

Tens of thousands of workers at Kaiser Permanente health care locations -- including in Colorado -- are now on strike. Picketing has begun outside facilities like the Aurora Centrepoint Medical Offices where the strikers are wearing purple shirts and waving signs, many saying "PATIENT CARE!" There are approximately 30 places in Colorado where the picketing will be happening. The strike is the largest for health care workers in U.S. history and is expected to last for three days. Kaiser Permanente management and union leaders spent the night and into this morning trying to work out a deal. Over the weekend, the two sides failed to reach an agreement with the main issues being low pay, short staffing and long wait times that employees say many patients are facing. In addition to Colorado, the strike is happening in California, Oregon, Virginia, Washington state and Washington, D.C., according to the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions.

Kaiser Permanente reached a tentative deal with the unions representing 75,000 employees, following the largest-ever health care strike in US history. “The frontline healthcare workers of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions are excited to have reached a tentative agreement with Kaiser Permanente,” the union coalition said on X. “We are thankful for the instrumental support of Acting US Labor Secretary Julie Su.” The company also thanked Su its tweet about the deal. “We are excited to have reached a tentative agreement with the frontline health care workers of the union coalition. We are thankful for the instrumental involvement of Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Su,” it said in its tweet. The strike last week lasted only three days, the length of time it had been scheduled to run. But the coalition of unions was threatening an eight-day strike next month with even more workers walking out if a new deal was not reached by October 31. Details of the deal were not immediately available. The union had been seeking better pay and improved staffing levels at Kaiser hospitals and other facilities.

Long Rant Incoming

So I woke up pretty happy today, right? Well, a couple hours ago I just got the worst news imaginable. My new job (Kaiser) let me go after only a couple of weeks because the job "wouldn't be a good fit for me."

I take issues with this. But, because I was raised right, I will explain why with tact.

One - At no point did they try to meet me in the middle. So, I recognize that my condition still goes un-diagnosed, but I still feel like this point is worth bringing up. I have no idea what my condition is, I just know that noise overwhelms me, I get upset over seemingly minuscule things, and I go non-verbal sometimes. At no point did they ask me about it or present me with an opportunity to tell them about it. Granted, I should've mentioned to them that I may need to be accommodated for, that's on me. But they should've at least brought this up in the orientation/training stage, right? Nope... they just threw me into the process without further discussions. Forgetting about me for a second - I worry about someone who ACTUALLY has a diagnosed mental condition that affects their working abilities. Would Kaiser do the same thing to them? Or is it a case of, "this employee didn't specify it in their application but this one did so we're gonna make sure we cater to them"? I don't know which option is worse.

Two - They were not clear on what training would be like. I mentioned earlier that Kaiser just threw me into training without explanation. They never ONCE said something like, "Okay, for this week we train you on this subject, and for this week we train you on this one." Nothing like that. They didn't even properly tell me which things I needed to be conscious of. For example, when cleaning up a patient room after a patient has been discharged, there are a couple things you need to remember in terms of what gets disposed of and what doesn't. Certain bed tarps are disposable, but some aren't. You'd think this information would be the first thing they teach trainees before they throw you into the mix... but, no. They left it up to the employee training me to teach me that stuff. Which they only told me when it was brought up in a room... if it got brought up at all. Plus, all of my formal training (i.e. policies and benefits and stuff like that) was all done online. With no supervisor supervision. I was just left to browse through 16 boring hours of word vomit that I have no way of remembering on a first pass. Not to mention the potential for malpractice this could cause. Without a supervisor, they would have no idea if I had just blasted through the courses without actually listening or reading to them. Old Navy, my previous employer, sat down with all new employees for two days to explain their important policies and rituals, to make sure we could discuss if need be. Kaiser basically said, "You're on your own, and we trust you to not have questions." They need to cater to slow learners and not just provide a "one size fits all" approach.

Three - Potential malpractice. Going back to cleaning up patient rooms for this point. We all know that IVs, bathrooms, makeshift toilets, and medicine are all apart of the hospital environment. Right. However, why are people like me - who have no knowledge of medicine and medicinal equipment - in charge of cleaning it up? Hell, one of my co-workers even said, "[referring to a dirty portable toilet] Technically the nurses are supposed to deal with that." Let me make one thing clear here: I don't have a problem with cleaning up shit like bodily fluids. It takes a lot to gross me out as an internet veteran. However, if the nurses are supposed to take care of things like leftover IV medicine and stuff with bodily fluids in them, then why am I doing their job? I'm not sorry when I say this. This is inexcusable and unacceptable. A person with no knowledge of the equipment should not be expected to do a job the nurses should've done prior. I would go as far as to say that this is laziness. Also, a couple of my coworkers decided to let the leftover medicine in the IV bags drip into the sinks. That is how you end up with contaminated drinking water. This is malpractice, and I will not be convinced otherwise. As a healthcare facility - especially one as large as Kaiser - they should know better.

Kaiser failed me. If they would've been more competent, I probably wouldn't have been let go. Or, was the problem me? Did they have a problem with my non-verbal episodes? Did they have a problem with the fact that I'm not the type of person to trust people easily - that I'm not just gonna warm up to someone right off the bat? Would I have been let go anyway because I have an "issue" that's not going to work in their workplace? Am I the problem because their work environment doesn't allow people like me to thrive? Either way, I had high hopes for this job. Because it was cleaning, and cleaning is my free therapy. The high pay and benefits were just trinkets to me, honest. However, it appears the world has other plans for me. Ones I fear.

Kaiser. Do better next time. Not for me. But for other people in the future who are like me. I'm not mad. Just disappointed.