Health care strike over pay and staff shortages heads into final day with no deal in sight
A massive health care strike over wages and staffing shortages headed into its final day on Friday without a deal between industry giant Kaiser Permanente and the unions representing the 75,000 workers who picketed this week.
The three-day strike carried out in multiple states will officially end Saturday at 6 a.m., and workers were expected to return to their jobs in Kaiser’s hospitals and clinics that serve nearly 13 million Americans. The two sides did not have any bargaining sessions scheduled after concluding their talks midday Wednesday.
The strike for three days in California — where most of Kaiser’s facilities are located — as well as in Colorado, Oregon and Washington was a last resort after Kaiser executives ignored the short-staffing crisis worsened by the coronavirus pandemic, union officials said. Their goal was to bring the problems to the public’s consciousness for support, according to the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions. Some 180 workers from facilities in Virginia and Washington, D.C., also picketed but only on Wednesday.
A three-day strike? What the hells the point of that?
It's a fact of hospital labor that when workers go on strike, some patients will not receive adequate care. The people working in healthcare are super passionate about their patients and don't want them to suffer. Short term strikes are a way to perform intermittent striking without losing legal protections, while also meeting the needs of patients. If Kaiser can't find an agreement though, they will go on a much longer strike like in 2021
Correct. This is usually seen as a warning shot. If kaiser doesn't get their shit together then they actually strike.
Their employers care less about the patients than the employees and are ecstatic that their doctors won't let the patients die, because the employer absolutely would let the patients die if it came down to it. I don't know what the alternative is but if you tell them you're coming back, they're not even going to sweat.
the thing about intermittent strikes, is that they're super successful. This is because they are highly unpredictable. The disruptions caused by a short term, unpredictable strike means that scabs are exceedingly difficult to have on hand as a contingency. This in turn means that it's more disruptive to operations (and profits) than a long haul strike.
To give KP a taste of what would happen if KP doesn't agree to the Union's terms
Not every strike is a months-long "The company must agree to every demand or we're going to strike until we starve to death" event
Yes, not every strike is effective.
It can let the employer know that the employees are absolutely willing to strike while also not putting patients' lives at risk. Even short strikes can be a massive headache for the company.