Nurses strike at Kaiser facilities
When 4,000 NUHW workers strike this week at Kaiser Permanente facilities, they will be joined by 17,000 registered nurses from the California Nurses Association and 2,000 members of the Stationary Engineers, Local 39. NUHW representatives are saying the strike, of one-, two- and three-day durations beginning Thursday, will be the largest in Kaiser history.
NUHW, which has been in negotiations with Kaiser for a year-and-a-half in southern California and nearing a year in northern California, says Kaiser has been refusing to bargain in good faith towards a fair contract. Workers want Kaiser to address their concerns over proper staffing levels and patient care but Kaiser, says Leighton Woodhouse, NUHW spokesperson, “(Does) not acknowledge that there’s a staffing problem.”
[See also: Nurses strike at Kaiser's Sunset Boulevard medical center.]
In media reports, Kaiser representatives have said that their staffing levels are appropriate. Kaiser did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
[See also: Nurses' strikes costly for hospitals.]
NUHW workers are also protesting Kaiser’s intention to cut their healthcare and retirement benefits. They are not alone on this front. Workers across the country have been battling their employers over cuts to healthcare and benefits.
Last month, 45,000 Verizon workers went on strike to protest concessions demanded by Verizon, such as larger employee contributions to healthcare coverage, fewer sick days and a pension freeze. This week, a strike involving 54,000 grocery workers in southern California was averted. The United Food and Commercial Workers have been negotiating with Ralphs, Vons and Alberstons grocery store chains with sticking points on healthcare funding and paying for benefits.
“Nurses will not accept these drastic, unwarranted and unconscionable cuts that harm our communities, harm our colleagues and harm our families,” said Deborah Burger, RN, a Kaiser employee and CNA co-president in a statement about the CNA sympathy strike. “Perhaps, in the wake of attacks on working people in other states, these multi-billion dollar corporations think they have a green light to punish patients and nurses here. There is no justification for such an all-out assault, and it will not stand.”
That other workers across the country are protesting some of the same issues that NUHW workers are fuels the resolve of NUHW’s members says Woodhouse, as does the sympathy strike by the CNA and the Stationary Engineers.
“The support that our members are receiving from the California Nurses Association members and the Stationary Engineers just indicates to them the validity of the grievances that they have on the table, and knowing that there’s all these folks that are not just willing to support them in words but also in their actions is hugely encouraging,” says Woodhouse. “It indicates that, I think, we’re in a position to be able to achieve a fair contract.”
Follow HFN associate editor Stephanie Bouchard on Twitter @SBouchardHFN.
