Va. Kaiser employees set to picket in Springfield

More than 75,000 Kaiser Permanente workers across the nation are threatening to strike beginning Wednesday morning if union leaders cannot come to an agreement on a new labor contract with the health care company, but Kaiser says it would only minimally impact “a few optometry departments and pharmacies in Virginia.” 

Unlike other recent labor actions, such as the five-month SAG-AFTRA and the Writers’ Guild of America strikes, Kaiser workers plan to strike no more than three days this week. In Virginia, the strike would last 24 hours, starting Wednesday morning and including a picket outside Springfield Medical Center, according to the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, which was still negotiating with the corporation Tuesday afternoon, after the most recent contract expired Sunday.

Nationwide, what is estimated to be the country’s largest-ever health care workers’ strike is set to include nurses, emergency department technicians, ultrasound and x-ray technicians, home health aides, medical assistants and hundreds of other positions, but in the mid-Atlantic region, the strike notice covers less than 400 optometrists and pharmacists and does not include nurses or physicians, Kaiser said. The company added, in a statement, that in the event of a strike, it expects facilities to remain open and operating with minimal disruption. 

“Health care workers are taking the work action to protest Kaiser executives’ bad faith bargaining, which is getting in the way of finding solutions to solve the Kaiser short-staffing crisis by investing in its workforce,” according to a news release from the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions. 

The large nonprofit health care system serves 12.7 million members in Washington, D.C., and eight states, including Virginia, which has 17 Kaiser facilities in Northern Virginia. 

Two unions in the mid-Atlantic, which represent about 80 rehab therapists who have been bargaining for a new contract for several months, voted in favor of a strike, according to Kaiser. 

The issue, according to the coalition, is “a series of unfair labor practices related to bargaining in bad faith” and “unsafe staffing levels that can lead to dangerously long wait times, mistaken diagnosis and neglect.” 

“Frontline health care workers join the health care industry because we want to help people, keep them safe, and help them heal,” Amanda Curling, an optometrist at Tysons, said in a statement. “We’ve repeatedly raised our concerns with Kaiser executives about the Kaiser short-staffing crisis, but they are bargaining in bad faith and are refusing to listen to frontline health care workers. We need to take action to protect patient safety.”

But executives disagree.

Kaiser says its current offer includes “guaranteed across-the-board wage increases from 12.5% to 16% over four years, and a proposed $21 minimum wage in Washington, Oregon, Colorado, the mid-Atlantic states (Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.), and Hawaii; and a $23 minimum wage in California; these minimum wages would increase each year of the four-year contract.”

Kaiser also says it leads total compensation in every market where it operates, and its proposals would continue that status. “A similar job at another organization would face an average of a 19% pay cut and lower benefits. In the mid-Atlantic, the average wage for a full-time employee in a coalition-represented role at Kaiser Permanente is $75,500,” according to the company.