Kaiser Permanente patients with appointments next week are on notice that a wide range of medical professionals plan to stage a five-day strike, starting at 7 a.m. Tuesday. And labor friction at Sharp HealthCare, and potentially UC San Diego Health, indicates that this fall\u00a0is shaping up to be a season of labor unrest.<\/p>\n
Kaiser has not said publicly exactly how its members are likely to be affected by the work stoppage, which involves 31,000 workers in California and Hawaii who are members of the United Nurses Associations of California\/Union of Health Care Professionals. The combined group, according to previous statements, includes \u201cregistered nurses, pharmacists, nurse anesthetists, nurse practitioners, midwives, physician assistants, rehab therapists, speech language pathologists, dietitians, and other specialty health care professionals.\u201d<\/p>\n
As they cannot just cease operation during strikes, medical providers, especially those operating full-service hospitals as Kaiser does, must bring in replacement workers to keep critical services running when regular employees do not report for their shifts. Nonemergency services, such as scheduled operations and procedures, are often rescheduled to lessen the overall workload during multiday pickets. Kaiser did not respond on Friday when asked how much care it will have to delay during the walkout.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe take any threat to services seriously, and our patients remain our priority,\u201d Kaiser said in a statement Friday. \u201cIf a strike occurs, our hospitals and medical offices will stay open with robust plans to ensure care.\u201d<\/p>\n
The union\u2019s stated reasons for this disruption are \u201cstagnant wages and unsafe staffing,\u201d with an organizer indicating Friday that wages in the bargaining unit\u2019s previous contract did not keep up with inflation.<\/p>\n
Sharp nurses also saw their contract lapse on Sept. 30, with the group of 5,700 workers announcing three days of \u201cinformational pickets\u201d Wednesday through Friday. Nurses are represented by the Sharp Professional Nurses Network, which is an affiliate of the United Nurses Associations of California\/Union of Health Care Professionals, the same group staging the Kaiser strike. The Sharp demonstration is not a strike, meaning that workers are picketing on their own time but are not walking off their jobs.<\/p>\n
And there are clear concerns that labor tension may be brewing between the California Nurses Association and the University of California. The university\u2019s Office of the President issued a public statement last week stating that it has offered the statewide labor group, which represents 24,000 nurses, an across-the-board wage increase of 27% over five years. That contract expires Oct. 31.<\/p>\n