Voting starts Saturday and goes through Sept. 13. The strike could begin as early as Oct. 1.
This would be “the largest strike of health care workers in the history of this country,” said Dave Regan, president of the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW).
Since the International Brotherhood of Teamsters averted a strike when it ratified a new contract with UPS on Tuesday, the Kaiser coalition is currently embroiled in the largest single-employer negotiations in the U.S.
The coalition is demanding Kaiser address staff concerns related to unsafe staffing levels and unfair labor practices.
“Our priority is to reach an agreement that is mutually beneficial and ensures we can continue to offer our people market-competitive pay and outstanding benefits,” Kaiser Permanente said in a statement.
“We are confident that we will reach an agreement that achieves that goal, before the contract expires on September 30.”
Four months into negotiations, Regan said the coalition had not received a counterproposal from Kaiser Permanente, the largest nonprofit health care provider in the U.S.
Kaiser and the coalition last negotiated a contract in 2019. In 2020, health care workers were thrust onto the front line of the pandemic, which exacerbated hospital staffing shortages across the country.
In a May survey of 33,000 healthcare workers by SEIU-UHW, two-thirds said they’d witnessed delays in or denial of care due to understaffing.
“We will have no choice but to vote to strike if Kaiser won’t let us give patients the quality care they deserve,” said Paula Coleman, a clinical laboratory assistant at Kaiser Permanente in Englewood, Colo.
