More than 75,000 Kaiser Permanente health care workers went on bang on Wednesday , impart to the grow list of strikes cross the nation this year . Healthcare workers threatened to go on strike after contract talks between union leaders and Kaiser stalled on Tuesday .
Healthcare strikers include licensed vocational nurse , ultrasonography sonographers , radiology , cristal - beam , and operative technician , and habitation health aids . According to the Union Coalition , the strike will affect Kaiser medical office and infirmary in California , Colorado , Virginia , Washington , DC , and Washington state .
The last Kaiser contract was issued in 2019 but conversations came to a standstill roughly 17 hr before the strike was scheduled to start , allot to the Coalition , Reutersreported . The Coalition read in apress releasethat the strike is expected to take to the woods from Oct. 4 through Oct. 7 at 6 ante meridiem , saying it “ will be the initial demonstration of our posture to Kaiser that we will not stand for their unfair undertaking practice . ”
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A Kaiser Permanente interpreter said in an e-mail to Gizmodo that it is “ still at the bargaining mesa ” with Coalition Union representatives , “ having worked through the dark in an effort to reach an correspondence . ” The representative add together : “ There has been a fate of advancement , with agreements reached on several specific marriage offer late Tuesday . ”
health care workers are demanding higher pay , and join representatives asked Kaiser for a minimum of $ 25 per hour and a 6.5 % raise each yr for the first two yr of the travail contract with another 5.75 % raise for each of the two years after . Kaiser offer a maximal 4 % salary increase , depend on emplacement , on Oct 1 , but the Union Coalition rejected the offer , saying it was n’t free-enterprise with the monetary value of living .
“ Workers are really being squeezed right now , ” Renee Saldana , a spokesperson for SEIU - UHW , toldCNN . “ They went through the bad global health crisis in a generation and then they come out and they ’re distressed about pay economic rent , they ’re worried about losing their house , they ’re worried about living in their automobile . ”
Kaiser Permanente enjoin the outlet that it prepared for workers to go on strike and hire impermanent nanny and other healthcare workers in the interim , but that patient with non - emergencies or elective subprogram should expect holdup or their appointments to be reschedule .
“ Our hospitals and emergency department will rest open . Our facilities will proceed to be staff by our physician , aim and experienced manager , and staff , and in some cases we will augment with contingent workers , ” a Kaiser Permanente spokesperson told the outlet .
Caroline Lucas , executive director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions toldCNBCthat the health care staffing shortage has go to insecure working experimental condition and reduced lineament care for patients .
“ We keep to have front - furrow healthcare workers who are burnt out and stretched to the easy lay and give the industry , ” she tell the outlet . “ We have folks getting injure on the problem because they ’re trying to do too much and see too many masses and work too quickly . It ’s not a sustainable situation . ”
The strike marks the tumid for healthcare workers in U.S. story , according to the Union Coalition , and add up as strikes have broken out across the land including the automobile and amusement industry .
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