For the third straight bargaining session, Kaiser came to the table with nothing yesterday. Instead, they chose to lecture us, telling us we had to “get real” and give them a “real” economic proposal. When asked what “real” might look like, they said similar to the insulting offer they had given us. They went on to suggest that changes we have proposed are not warranted because things have been working fine with contract language that has been in place for the last ten years or more.
We then told Kaiser management that they were the ones out of touch with reality as things have changed significantly in the last ten years. Points we made include:
- They have been fined and put under corrective action plans by the DMHC twice.
- New laws have passed and they can no longer make patients wait months for appointments without further penalties.
- There is a mental health crisis.
- Kaiser cannot keep clinicians, largely because of the horrid, factory-like working conditions.
- They need to offer better wages and benefits to recruit and retain staff, who have so many more opportunities elsewhere than they had ten years ago.
- Our wage proposal is very real, as all we are asking for is the same annual increases they gave the coalition unions last year and equity adjustments to make up for years of substandard wage increases (including wage freezes), that have left Kaiser wages uncompetitive in today’s market.
- Our members are more united, and more angry, than they have ever been and are prepared to strike over our important issues like staffing, workload and pension.
We reminded them that they have less than two weeks to come to their senses and offer us what we deserve or we will be on a real strike.
After things calmed down a bit, they asked us some questions about our proposal on Workload and Patient Management Time and then left for a three-hour caucus. Their questions didn’t appear to be for understanding so they could come back with a reasonable proposal, but rather to help them craft their public message, where they will likely say “the union’s’ proposal for more administrative time will severely impact access to mental health care.”
Indeed, when they returned from their caucus they had nothing for us on workload or PMT. Rather, they gave us another one of their all-or-nothing “package” proposals on nine remaining non-economic issues. For six of these items, the proposed current contract language, for two they made minor changes that don’t address our concerns, and for one, they made changes we are considering and would agree to, if doing so did not mean we had to accept their whole package. They also made minor changes to the incentive metrics for Psychiatry and for Social Medicine, but conditioned these changes on us accepting totally unrealistic metrics for Care at Home.
When we meet again tomorrow, we will respond to the proposals they gave us and press them further on the economic issues they have either refused or neglected to address.
Join us for bargaining
You may sign up here to attend our bargaining session tomorrow or October 15 or October 17.
Sign up for picket shifts
If you haven’t already done so, you can sign up here for picket shifts for our open-ended strike, which is scheduled to commence October 21.
Psych-Social Town Hall Information
The zoom link for our town hall meeting this Sunday from 10 a.m. until 11:30 a.m. is below. The agenda will include a comprehensive update on bargaining and then focus on strike preparedness and logistics, followed by a Q&A session.
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85439524510
Meeting ID: 854 3952 4510
When joining the meeting, you will be temporarily placed in a waiting room. To expedite being admitted to the meeting, we ask that you identify yourself by name on your device or in the Mobilize app. Once you enter the meeting, be sure to mute your device and remain on mute unless called upon.
We look forward to seeing you on Sunday.
