The partnership includes over 100,000 union members. Since Kaiser’s labor-management partnership was founded in 1997, none of its 35 union locals has gone on strike. We’re the ones who sustained the hospitals and took care of the sick like it’s a war zone.” The unions say Kaiser is seeking to squeeze wages when the non-profit company is doing well, with $45bn in cash reserves and $6.8bn in operating profits the last three years. “But their offer shows they don’t mean it. “They tell us we’re heroes and we’re much appreciated because of everything we did during the pandemic”, he said. “It’s a slap in the face,” he said, noting that the 1%-a-year offer was well below this year’s 5%-plus inflation rate. It certainly caused a strong reaction in Semanu Mawugbe, a Kaiser nurse in Los Angeles. “If they’ve decided not to do that any more, it’s going to cause a strong reaction among the unions.”
“The partnership has been built on it being a leading payer in the market,” said Adrienne Eaton, dean of the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, who has written about Kaiser. Saying that its labor costs were far above its competitors, Kaiser initially proposed raises of 1% a year for three years and cutting the pay of new hires to 26% below those of its current employees. The nurses’ union – United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care – complained that management’s latest employment offer would “depress wages for current employees and slash wages for incoming workers”. Last week one of Kaiser’s nurses’ unions served notice it would strike on 15 November, and soon after, several other unions also voted to strike.
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