Kaiser, unions reach tentative agreement
Kaiser Permanente reached a tentative agreement with 96,000 of its workers on Friday, ending weeks of tense negotiations and union pickets.
The agreement with the coalition of 32 unions across the country would provide 3 percent raises in each year of the two-year contract, according to the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, which accounts for about half of the covered workers.
Dave Regan, an SEIU-UHW trustee in Oakland, called the pact "a remarkable achievement in a tough economy."
It came early Friday after a 3 1/2 day marathon bargaining session.
Over the past few months, health care workers have been staging rallies at Kaiser hospitals to pressure the nation's largest health maintenance organization for a new labor pact.
Kaiser had sought concessions from its unions on health care benefits to reduce its costs. Health insurance fees and deductibles were raised earlier this year on managers and nonunion employees.
In addition to raises, union members will keep their current benefits package and will have expanded rights to cash out unused sick leave.
The agreement, which mostly covers employees in technical and nonprofessional functions, is subject to a rank-and-file vote this summer.
If ratified, the contract and initial raise will go into effect Oct. 1.
While Kaiser and its union were coming to terms, the University of California hospitals remained at odds with the California Nurses Association.
The union said it was prepared to hold a strike on June 10 at hospitals across the UC system, including UC Davis Medical Center, because it was dissatisfied with the progress over its own contract negotiations.
How the university will respond remains unclear because no talks have been scheduled.
"What we'll do is look at what the impact will be if the strike goes forward," said Carol Robinson, the chief nursing officer for the UC Davis Medical Center. Services could be reduced if the center's 1,700 registered nurses walk out, she said.
As many as 13,000 California nurses could take part in the strike, if the union follows through with its threat to protest staffing policies at university hospitals. Nurses in Minnesota – 12,000 of them – are scheduled to strike on the same day.
The unions say the walkouts could be the largest nurses strike in U.S. history.