Pharmacy and lab employees will join striking Kaiser Permanente nurses and other health care workers on the picket line in San Diego County on Monday.
More than 500 members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 135 will launch a strike against Kaiser on Monday morning, while thousands more nurses and health care workers begin their third week of an Unfair Labor Practice strike against the health care giant.
The UFCW strike will begin at 7 a.m. Monday with picketing to begin shortly afterward at San Diego Medical Center on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard and San Marcos Medical Center on Craven Road.
A solidarity rally will also be held at the San Diego location Monday.
“Our members are standing shoulder to shoulder with our Alliance partners,” UFCW Local 135 President Todd Walters said in a statement. “Kaiser’s refusal to return to the national bargaining table is blocking progress on safe staffing, fair wages and the contract our members have earned as health care professionals. The fastest way to end this strike is for Kaiser to come back to the table and finish negotiations.”
A Kaiser representative said the newest strike would have some effect on the company’s operations.
“Our hospitals, emergency departments, and all medical offices have remained open, though some of our pharmacies and labs will be closed,” Kaiser said in a statement.
“Members continue to have 24/7 access to same-day care through Get Care Now on kp.org and our mobile app. To best support our patients, we have temporarily shifted some appointments to virtual care and rescheduled certain non-urgent procedures so that our resources remain focused on urgent and emergent needs.
“Employees across the organization are stepping in to help, and many from other regions have volunteered to temporarily relocate to Southern California to support local operations during this period. … Leadership teams are monitoring operations around the clock, adjusting staffing as needed, and ensuring patients continue to receive needed care.”
The company added that pharmacy patients can avoid wait times and get non-urgent and refill prescriptions using Kaiser’s mail-order pharmacy.
UFCW Southern California locals represent over 4,000 Kaiser Permanente frontline health care employees who work as pharmacy assistants, pharmacy technicians, clinical lab scientists, medical lab technicians and clinical and administrative workers.
Meanwhile, the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals launched their strike on Jan. 26. UNAC/UHCP members include registered nurses, pharmacists, nurse anesthetists, nurse practitioners, midwives, physician assistants, rehab therapists, speech language pathologists, dietitians and other specialty health care professionals.
“We’re striking because Kaiser has committed serious unfair labor practices and because Kaiser refuses to bargain in good faith over staffing that protects patients, workload standards that stop moral injury and the respect and dignity that Kaiser caregivers have been denied for far too long,” UNAC/UHCP President Charmaine Morales, a registered nurse, said earlier.
Kaiser Permanente San Diego spokeswoman Jennifer Dailard had a different take.
“UNAC/UHCP’s demands for wage increases, wage scale adjustments, and step increases for nurses would amount to a 63% average pay hike over the term of the contract,” Dailard said in a statement to CNS on Sunday.
“For example, a full-time RN in Southern California could see pay rise from $160,861 to $264,661. These demands would raise annual payroll by $3 billion — $1 billion more than Kaiser Permanente’s proposal — and would make health care less affordable for members, with broad implications for costs in all markets.”
