A lot of paper was passed back and forth at the bargaining table yesterday, but the bottom line is Kaiser gave us only two proposals.  Their first proposal was an all-or nothing proposal with three components:

1. Increase the wage offer to annual increases of 5% in the first year, and 4% in each of the subsequent years of the contract, still 1% per year less than what they gave to the coalition unions last year.
2. Retirement plans remain status quo – not only no restoration of the pension, but no other improvements to retirement benefits.
3. Require full time therapists in the department of psychiatry to actually see patients for 34 hours per week while pretending to offer 6 hours per week for “administrative tasks” and patient care duties.  The catch is for each of the 34 scheduled patients who no-show, management can take away an hour of this “reserved” time. And if a therapist experiences a typical no-show rate of 18%, all six of these hours would be eaten up.

Not only are all three of these propositions objectionable in their own right, if one felt faintly tempted to accept one of them (maybe the wages), they would  have to accept the other two.

At the same time KP management offered this insulting proposal, they had the audacity to ask us if we would agree to extend the contract for a month.  We said we might consider this if they came to the table with something meaningful next Monday. We reminded them that whether or not we signed an extension, by law, the contract remains in full force and effect, with a notable exception being we can strike once a contract expires and is not extended.

The other proposal management gave us was a slight modification of a previous proposal that would still allow them to potentially flood psychiatry and addiction medicine with per diem associates.

After we received Kaiser’s proposals, we gave them a comprehensive proposal on all outstanding non-economic issues, which included revisions on eight of our proposals:

• Union Staff Representatives, Shop Stewards and Bargaining Committee
• Subcontracting
• Professional Hours and Individual Schedule Changes
• Flexible and Hybrid Schedules
• Staffing Committees
• Workload Distribution and Patient Management Time
• New Technology
• Preceptors

We plan to offer a similar comprehensive proposal on economic issues after the key non-economic issues are settled.

Separately, we  gave Kaiser revised proposals on incentive plan metrics for Psychiatry, Addiction Medicine, Social Medicine and Home Care Services.

Despite nearly eighty percent of our entire bargaining unit having already signed onto the open-ended strike authorization, it appears that Kaiser Leaders (the ones who send us those smarmy “Leadership Messages”) still don’t believe we are ready to strike.  We may well have to give them a ten day notice of our intent to strike, unless we see significant movement soon.

Additional Bargaining Dates

Besides the previously scheduled bargaining session on September 30, we have confirmed two additional sessions for October 1 and October 4.  We also offered three additional days, October, 6, 7 &10, and are awaiting confirmation from the employer. If you would like to attend one of the in-person bargaining sessions in Glendale, sign up here.

Next Steps

We are preparing a side by side comparison of our proposals versus Kaiser’s proposal which we hope to have ready in the next day or two.  We will also be scheduling a Town Hall meeting for October 13th, details to follow.

Finally, with only six days left to sign on to the strike authorization petition, now is the time to do so, using your unique ID.

Don’t hesitate to contact any of us or your shop stewards should you have any questions about the strike authorization petition.