Kaiser Permanente announced Wednesday morning that it had reached a tentative agreement with a coalition of worker unions that were threatening to hold a weeklong strike in October. The news comes after two days of scheduled bargaining on Monday and Tuesday.
The coalition was composed of local union chapters representing Kaiser workers in six states, including the Portland and Southwest Washington branch of the Service Employees International Union, SEIU Local 49.
The local chapter confirmed the news in a post on its Facebook page, and the union coalition sent out a press release to announce the deal.
“This agreement will allow us to rebuild the worker-management partnership that has been so important to all of us in making Kaiser successful over the last 20 years,” said Georgette Bradford, an ultrasound technologist at Kaiser in Sacramento. “Reaching an agreement was not easy; it had lots of twists and turns, but in the end we accomplished what we set out to do — reach an agreement that is good for patients, workers and our communities.”
The tentative four-year agreement covers 85,000 unionized Kaiser workers, 8,300 of whom are in Oregon and Washington, according to a press release from Kaiser. The unions represented workers from a wide variety of specializations including optometrists, pharmacists and maintenance staff.
The press release said the deal includes annual pay increases, employee benefits and the creation of a program to reduce a national shortage of health care workers.
“We greatly respect and value our employees who deliver on our mission every day,” said Arlene Peasnall, interim chief human resources officer, Kaiser Permanente Health Plan and Hospitals. “This agreement is a testament to the dedication, compassion and skill those employees bring to work every day and demonstrates that Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition have a shared commitment to affordability for our members.”
The SEIU Local 49 Facebook post said the annual pay increases will be 3 percent, and a later press release from the union coalition highlighted the worker program, which is set to receive $130 million in funding over the four year duration of the contract.
The coalition press release clarified that the annual raises will be 3 percent each year for employees in California, Oregon and Southwest Washington. The raises will be 3 percent in the first year and 2 percent plus a 1 percent lump sum in each of the following three years for workers in the District of Columbia, Colorado, Hawaii, Virginia, Maryland, and the state of Washington outside of Southwest Washington.
The agreement touches on several other topics of concern that had been raised by the union coalition during negotiations, including protections against outsourcing, protections for existing retirement benefits, a ban on subcontracting and “an intensive joint effort to revitalize the worker-management partnership,” according to the coalition press release.
The deal also includes the creation of a committee to work through issues around new technology in the health care industry.
SEIU Local 49 said it is still scheduling dates and locations for its members to vote on the contract. If ratified, the contract will take effect Oct. 1
The tentative deal averts a weeklong strike that was slated to begin Oct. 14. The strike had been in the works since July, and the plans and strike dates were announced last week. Earlier this week, before the deal was reached, SEIU Local 49 had announced plans to picket the Cascade Park Medical Center on Mill Plain Boulevard along with three other Kaiser locations in the Portland metro area and one in Salem.
