As we reported after our bargaining session last week, we made the last substantive proposal on every open issue in bargaining, despite Kaiser’s insistence that we owed them responses to their big three proposals. To dispel this assertion, yesterday we presented management with a summary of the latest proposals of the union (from December 16th and January 22nd) that correspond to their big three proposals, last modified on October 15th.
With its big three proposals, Kaiser is seeking to eliminate all of the safeguards we won three years ago for patient care and sustainable workload, and add the specter of elimination of our jobs and being replaced by outside contractors, non-union employees and/or A.I. To summarize:
- IPC time – would be up in smoke, as management would have free reign to book patients into IPC time
- Return Access – would be destroyed with the elimination of 1:5 ratio
- Job Security – would be tenuous, as language protecting against lay-offs would be eliminated
- Individual Provider Clinical Judgment – would be abrogated, as management has asserted the intent of their proposal is to have “total control” over clinical decisions
Management once again had nothing for us. They offered no future dates and none are scheduled. And when pressed to engage neutral mediators, they did not agree, but did say they would consider it.
It is clear we will have to escalate actions outside of bargaining to get management to move at the table. It is important that we have maximum participation in our current OTA blitz and in our ongoing social media campaign.
