Over a thousand Kaiser Permanente nurses are taking to the picket line today in an effort to jumpstart contract negotiations they say have made little progress since kicking off last September.
The California Nurses Association/National Nurses United issued a 10-day notice for the June 23 strike at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center. The one-day demonstration aims to highlight what the union described as insufficient staffing, supplies and general investment in the center’s nursing workforce.
“In the last four months, we have seen 50 nurses leave our hospital due to the poor working conditions that put patient care in jeopardy,” Tinny Abogado, a registered nurse at LAMC, said in a June 15 statement from the union. “It pains me to see experienced nurses leave our hospital. When they walk out the door they take knowledge and expertise that is critical in caring for our patients.”
The union’s strike announcement highlighted 12.5-hour shifts with no meal breaks, frequently missing or broken medical supplies and the need for ancillary staff who could assist nurses with patient care.
“Kaiser made $8.1 billion in profits last year, they have enough money to make sure we have syringes when we need them, ancillary staff to help care for our patients and relief nurses to provide [registered nurses] with meal breaks,” Abogado said.
Kaiser Permanente said in a statement that “it is unfortunate the union has chosen to attempt to disrupt patient care and service as a bargaining tactic, especially during a pandemic.” However, contingency plans involving temporary staff are in place to avoid care interruptions, the system said.
Kaiser Permanente’s statement also referenced its “long and productive history with organized labor” as well as the more than 160,000 union-represented employees working across its organization.
“We look forward to continued discussions at the bargaining table because it is the best way to resolve differences and reach a mutually beneficial agreement,” the system said.
Late last year the large nonprofit narrowly dodged a major strike involving 32,000 workers belonging to the Alliance of Health Care Unions, which also centered around contract terms and a controversial two-tier wage system that would have impacted future union members.
It’s a busy day for California Nurses Association members beyond Kaiser Permanente.
Elsewhere in the state, nearly 350 member nurses at Prime Healthcare’s Shasta Regional Medical Center are holding a one-day strike in protest of policies that “contradict best practices, such as routinely making profit-driven staffing decisions that do not follow the clinically proven safe-staffing ratios needed to protect patients and produce best health outcomes,” according to a Wednesday announcement.
Shasta Regional Medical Center nurses have been in contract negotiations since May 2021.
At Palomar Health outside of San Diego, however, management averted a one-day, 3,000-worker strike with tentative contract agreements announced earlier this week.
The California Nurses Association and the Caregiver and Healthcare Employees Union, to which the workers belonged, had been in contract talks for over 14 months and similarly threatened a strike on June 23.