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88,000 Kaiser Permanente workers set to start voting tomorrow on Oct 1 strike nationwide [1]

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Date: 2023-08-25

Last Updated: Aug. 25, 2023 at 3:46 p.m. ET First Published: Aug. 24, 2023 at 8:38 p.m. ET Tens of thousands of Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers will take a strike-authorization vote starting this weekend for what could be the largest healthcare-worker strike in U.S. history, union leaders announced Thursday. The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions has been in negotiations with Kaiser since April, pushing for higher wages and improved staffing levels, for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began. The last negotiations were in 2019. Since then, healthcare workers have faced [even more] worsening staffing shortages … ...Patients are waiting longer to be seen, or having to settle for phone appointments, Engler added. “It scares me that we don’t have enough staff,” she said. “Healthcare workers are leaving the industry because they can’t take it anymore….”

x x YouTube Video Coalition Unions Make Full Economic Proposal, Kaiser Permanente Management Refuses to Respond We made a strong economic proposal that will recruit and retain the healthcare workers desperately needed to address the staffing crisis at Kaiser Permanente. We proposed 6.25%-7% across-the-board for ALL regions and a $25/minimum. So how did management react? They refused to respond. Aug 2, 2023 After three years of the COVID pandemic and chronic understaffing, 85,000 healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente are calling on management to provide safe staffing levels. Caregivers say understaffed hospitals and clinics are unsafe and can lead to long wait times, mistaken diagnoses, and neglect, making it harder to give patients quality care.

Voting begins August 26 in Denver, Colorado. Workers In California, the majority of the 88,000 nationwide — with roughly 9 million patients, almost one quarter of all Californians — start voting August 28 through Sept. 13, A strike would impact nearly 13 million Kaiser Permanente users in those states, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Oregon, Virginia, Washington state, and Washington DC.

Union members comprise about

The remainder are non-union staff, physicians (The Permanente groups), and management. The majority of unionized staff are women and people of color. Overall, 26% of KP’s workforce is male and 35.5% is white,

<big><big> In July, 2023 PaddockPost reported 2020 KP executive compensation above $2million as:</big></big>

$17,268,060: Gregory Adams, Chairman and CEO $ 6,674,960: Richard Daniels, EVP, Chief Information Officer $ 5,580,333: Janet Liang, Regional President, Northern CA $ 5,086,656: Kathryn Lancaster, EVP and CFO $ 4,886,355: Arthur Southam, EVP, Health Plan Operations $ 4,643,773: Julie Miller-Phipps, Region President, Southern CA $ 4,300,195: Kimberly Horn, EVP, Group President, MOC $ 3,117,144: Mark Zealman, SVP, General Counsel and Secretary $ 2,882,881: Anthony Barrueta, SVP, Government Relations $ 2,557,223: Chuck Bevilacqua, SVP, Health Plan Service and Admin $ 2,360,352: Wade Overgaard, SVP, Health Plan Ops – CA $ 2,337,223: Michael Rowe, SVP, Chief Business Development and Strategy Executive $ 2,009,791: George Disalvo, SVP, CFO Southern CA $ 2,040,901: Christian Meisner, SVP, Chief HR Officer $ 2,011,912: Arlene Peasnell, SVP, HR and Labor Relations

with another 25 above $1million.

<big><big>KP posted a $2.1billion net profit in the second quarter of 2023, and $1.2bn in the first quarter. </big></big>

..Researchers have said that an untold number of health care workers likely suffered psychological setbacks known as moral injuries during the pandemic because [understaffing forced them to violate] their own moral compass or witnessed someone doing so.



“Do I check on that (emergency department) patient that is suffering from an asthma attack?” [respiratory therapist Liz] Grigsby asked rhetorically, “Or do I go to the person that is in (the intensive care unit) who is so short of breath or do I go to (the neonative intensive care unit) with that micro-preemie baby that a mother just delivered? It’s a crisis a situation that leaves our hands tied and our hearts heavy...”

For backstory on the decades of healthcare worker struggles with this becoming-behemoth claimed-not-for-profit insurance and managed care company, it’s top management compensation packages, its venture capital investment program in whose yield neither the workers nor patients in the service-provision arm of the system can share, the coalition of unions involved, and related reportage, see past posts at the KP tag-link. or read in the cumulative bibliography below, 192 items as of this posting.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/25/2189687/-88-000-Kaiser-Permanente-workers-set-to-start-voting-starting-tomorrow-on-Oct-1-strike-nationwide

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