More than 75,000 Kaiser Permanente health care workers began a three-day strike Wednesday, a job action that could delay medical appointments, lab results and prescriptions for thousands of patients, especially in California.
Among the union staff members taking part in the walkout were support staff and other employees, like X-ray technicians, receptionists, medical assistants, sanitation workers who disinfect rooms between patients and pharmacy workers who help dispense medications. These workers attend surgeries, run imaging equipment and assist in hundreds of Kaiser’s hospitals and outpatient clinics.
Doctors and many nurses were not involved in the strike, but Kaiser officials warned that some non-urgent procedures like colonoscopies or mammograms might be postponed, some clinic hours might be reduced and that waits on phone calls for assistance could be lengthy. Some sites, mainly labs in places like Anaheim, San Diego and other parts of California were closed, according to Kaiser, and others were operating with reduced hours.
No major disruptions in health care services were reported during the first hours of the strike, and Kaiser officials reiterated that hospitals and emergency rooms, as well as its hospital-based pharmacies, would stay open.
For Kaiser Permanente, whose health plans cover 13 million people in eight states, the widespread labor strike represented a turning point in what has historically been the health system’s relatively amicable relationship with its employees. Union leaders say this may be the largest strike by health care workers in recent U.S. history.
“I’ve been here 33 years and I’ve never seen it like this,” said Lisa Floyd, a lab assistant and a member of the bargaining committee. “Kaiser used to pride itself on being the best place to work and the best place to get care. It doesn’t feel like that anymore. It feels like they’ve lost their way.”
Negotiations continued on Wednesday, though no reports of progress were issued. The Biden administration’s acting secretary of labor, Julie Su, traveled to San Francisco and has been meeting with officials from both sides of the negotiations in the hotel where the talks were underway, according to multiple members of the bargaining committee. A spokeswoman from the Department of Labor confirmed her involvement.
The frustrations of health care workers have been boiling over across the country, especially since the pandemic highlighted and exacerbated staffing shortages among nurses and led to burnout for many employees. Concerns about patient overloads resulted in a nurses’ strike in New York City in January, and there were more than a dozen similar strikes this year in California, Illinois, Michigan and elsewhere.
More broadly, the tight labor market has emboldened many unionized workers, leading to the recently averted strike at United Parcel Service and current picket lines among autoworkers. “Unions are flexing their muscles in a bunch of industries,” said Ruth Milkman, a professor of sociology and labor studies at the City University of New York.
Outside the West Los Angeles Medical Center, about 750 workers jabbed picket signs in the air and danced to the bass of a DJ beat. Passing trucks honked their horns in support.
Maria Fixico, a laboratory assistant at Kaiser for 12 years, was among the striking workers. She said she arrived at 3 a.m. on Wednesday to complete patient tests before the walkout.
“We know these patients. They were worried. They were asking us, ‘Who is going to take care of us?’” Ms. Fixico said.
Having worked through the “really, really hard” months of the pandemic, Ms. Fixico said her team has often been reduced to three from five members. “We’re here because we love to be here, we love our community,” she said. “But we are so short-staffed.”
The strains of acute staffing shortages contributed to the tensions between the unions and Kaiser executives in the run-up to the contract’s expiration on Saturday. The unions said that Kaiser needed to offer better wages to attract more workers and hire enough people to make up for the exodus of staff during the pandemic.
Mattie Ruffin, 69, a nursing assistant at Kaiser for 17 years, said a lack of adequate staffing had taken a serious toll. When “we’re running room to room, the patients aren’t getting what they need,” Ms. Ruffin said. With so much burnout among workers, “you’re going to see higher hospitalization rates, more infections, more falls,” she said.
In the campus courtyard, security officers stood on every corner, and signs offered apologies to patients for “any inconvenience” caused by rallying union workers.
Among the strikers outside a medical center in San Francisco was Edward Lopez-Matus, a medical assistant who drives for Uber 40 hours a week on top of his full-time job, to make ends meet for his two teenage children.
“My entire paycheck goes to rent,” said Mr. Lopez-Matus, who said a staffing shortage had left him assigned to help two doctors instead of one, increasing the chances that he could make a mistake.
At other sites, workers in Georgia and Hawaii will remain on the job, according to a Kaiser official, and walkouts were expected to be limited in Washington state. In Virginia and the District of Columbia, only pharmacists and optometrists were striking on Wednesday for one day. Maryland workers did not take part.
How much progress had been made on wage talks was not made public. In earlier proposals considered for a new four-year contract, the union had sought a $25 hourly minimum wage and increases of 7 percent in the first two years and 6.25 percent in the two years after, according to a recent proposal.
Kaiser had countered with minimum hourly wages of between $21 and $23 next year, increasing by a dollar per year. Raises would vary among locations.
Many nurses are represented by other unions, including the California Nurses Association, which agreed to a new contract in Northern California last December.
Although the strike was expected to last no more than three days, it was likely to cause Kaiser to lose revenue, according to Kevin Holloran, a senior director at Fitch Ratings.
“Kaiser will respond by keeping critical infrastructure open, but absent plans to backfill striking team members with temporary help, the strike will very likely result in canceled procedures, reduced volumes and a brief but sharp decline on provider revenues this week,” he said in an email.
Soumya Karlamangla contributed reporting.
