By Beau Cline
Healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente was just involved in a nationwide strike over the renewal of contracts for tens of thousands of nurses, ER technicians, and pharmacists. This new contract is trying to address the sudden staffing shortage by increasing wages by up to 21% in hopes of retaining its current workers for the next 4 years.
Yvonne Esquivel, a pediatric medical assistant for Kaiser in Gilroy, California, said this in an interview after the contract was settled. “Thousands of Kaiser health care workers fought hard for this new agreement, and now we will finally have the resources we need to do the job we love and keep our patients safe.” The new contract raises the minimum wage for Kaiser workers to $25 for California residents and $21 for out-of -state workers.
Health care workers can count this as a big win because not only will they be getting raises, but now over 85,000 Kaiser staff are unionized. A big thanks to US Labor Secretary Julie Su for brokering the deal between the Kaiser executives and strikers, ending the long seven months of negotiations.
This strike will have effects even outside of Kaiser Permanente hospitals, as John August points out “It’s a great pressure point for the rest of the industry, for sure.”. John August was the executive director for the coalition of Kaiser unions until 2013. Dave Regan, the president of SEIU United Healthcare workers added this “ We think we have the ability to create 25,000 new health care workers over the next four years,” Regan said. “We can’t do that unless we rebuild the partnership.”
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