Kaiser Permanente appeared headed for a labor clash with 75,000 of its healthcare workers as union leaders said contract talks had stalled on Tuesday, leaving the two sides hours away from a threatened three-day strike in several states.
The union has set a deadline of 6 a.m. PDT Wednesday to reach a tentative deal on a new labor pact covering nurses, medical technicians and support staff in hundreds of hospitals across California, Oregon, Washington state, Colorado, Virginia and Washington, D.C.
As of Tuesday, the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions said the healthcare giant had yet to offer acceptable terms to address severe staffing shortages, or to embrace adequate improvements in pay and benefits sought by the workers.Negotiations broke off on Tuesday afternoon, with 17 hours to go before the strike deadline, according to the union coalition, made up of locals representing 85,000 Kaiser employees. More than 75,000 would be idled by a strike.
Contract talks "are ongoing," she said, adding that Kaiser was "available 24/7 to continue bargaining earnestly with the coalition until we reach a fair and equitable agreement." In Virginia and Washington, D.C., only optometrists and pharmacists would be on strike, but the impact on patients in California, Colorado, Oregon, and part of southwestern Washington state would be more substantial, she acknowledged.
Wages are another point of contention. Kaiser said it has offered across-the-board wage increases of 12.5% to 16% over four years, and says the company leads "total compensation in every market where we operate."
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