Healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente in Oregon and Southwest Washington are set to strike for five days beginning next Tuesday if they are unable to reach a contract agreement with the care consortium. 

The Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals (OFNHP), which represents around 4,000 Kaiser employees, announced last month that 97 percent of its voting members authorized the union to call a strike in advance of the expiration of their labor contract at the end of September. 

The OFNHP-represented Kaiser workers are just a small number of the nearly 48,000 healthcare workers across multiple states who belong to unions that are part of the Alliance of Health Care Unions and have authorized strikes beginning on October 14.

This is the second consecutive contract negotiation in which Kaiser workers in the region have been on the cusp of striking—and Kaiser workers told the Mercury that this contract dispute has its roots in the timing of when that last contract was signed back in 2021. 

“When we bargained in 2021, it was basically right before inflation really went crazy,” Gina R. Mann, a medical laboratory scientist at Kaiser Sunnyside, said. “So what were modest, across-the-board wage increases have actually pulled us very far behind our competitors.”

The result, Mann said, is that wages for Kaiser workers over the lifetime of their now-expired contract failed to keep up with major increases in the cost of living—an issue exacerbated by the fact that many workers received reduced raises during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Kaiser workers are, therefore, attempting to address that issue in the first year of their next contract. 

The union has proposed a 12 percent wage increase in the first year of their new contract and an overall 25 percent wage increase over the contract’s four years, while Kaiser has countered with an offer of a 6.5 percent wage increase in the contract’s first year and a 21.5 percent wage increase over its lifetime. 

“Taking the current economic environment into consideration, our across-the-board 4-year wage increases would normally have averaged 14.0% in total, to be consistent with estimated annual wage inflation,” a Kaiser spokesperson wrote in a statement provided to the Mercury. “Our offer is significantly higher than that.” 

Kaiser has maintained that, if it agreed to the union’s wage increase proposal, it would have to pass the added cost on to members in the form of “higher rate increases.” 

But Kaiser workers argue the result of not offering what they characterize as competitive wages and benefits would have even worse consequences for patients. 

“There are definitely open positions that are not being filled, because we’re just not able to attract candidates with the wages and the benefits that we're offering, and then we also are externalizing quite a bit of care as well,” Neoma Palmer, a physical therapist based out of the Orchards Medical Office in Vancouver, said.

The outsourcing of care is one of the other issues animating the contract battle. Mann said that, after Providence and Legacy sold their hospital laboratories to the North Carolina-based multinational Labcorp two years ago, her bargaining unit asked for a provision in its contract stipulating that if Kaiser similarly sold off its laboratories, their contract would be respected. 

Mann said Kaiser’s regional office agreed to that proposal—but that the national Kaiser office vetoed it. 

“It raises a lot of questions for everyone, and is a concern not only for our members but to our community—because if Kaiser doesn’t intend to sell, why can’t they make the deal?” Mann said.

A Kaiser spokesperson declined to address whether the care consortium has any present plans to sell off its laboratory business.

The concern that Kaiser might sell pieces of its healthcare operation to third parties is not the only concern union members have about the quality of patient care. Palmer said Kaiser is also shortening appointment times and cutting down on charting and triage time for nurses, while Mann noted that some dental appointments have been cut from an hour to 40 minutes. 

“They're trying to, instead of expanding the operations from a labor perspective, have more people seen per day with the amount of staff by shortening appointments,” Mann said. “There are numerous reasons why that doesn't work and isn't going to give the kind of access or the kind of care that we want to provide.”

In addition to increased wages and improved benefits, the union is pushing to ensure that workloads remain manageable—an issue Palmer said has led to increased staff turnover, particularly among first year nurse practitioners and MPAs.

Kaiser, meanwhile, has noted its standard of care has earned it high ratings for Medicare plans and recognition in particular for its Portland area hospitals.

“The union’s claims about Kaiser Permanente’s quality and staffing don’t reflect the facts,” a Kaiser spokesperson wrote to the Mercury. “Alliance [of Health Care Unions]-represented employees work closely with us every day in teams focused on improving care. Our nationally recognized integrated care model consistently delivers better health outcomes.”

The two sides remain engaged in bargaining this week and still have several days to reach a deal and avert a strike that would affect patients at Kaiser facilities including the Sunnyside Medical Center and the Westside Medical Center in the Portland area. 

Kaiser has maintained that a strike is unnecessary as long as the two sides remain at the table, but OFNHP members disagree—and believe they are better prepared for a strike now than they were in 2021. 

“I will say there’s definitely a different feeling this time,” Mann said. “I think we've gone into this much more prepared and much more intentional with how we are approaching this to get our members ready.”

Mann, who leads the bargaining unit for lab professionals within OFNHP, said bargaining unit chairs have been meeting with each other weekly to strategize around a potential strike for months and have been in consistent communication with their colleagues and action teams. 

Kaiser workers have also been receiving support from other parts of the labor movement, with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) providing a support person who is helping OFNHP strategize during the bargaining process. 

Palmer, who has been with Kaiser for 12 years and has never been on strike before, said she is ready for whatever happens next.

“I really feel like this is a powerful moment,” she said.