After a year of contract negotiations in which Kaiser has rejected proposals aimed at increasing staffing and improving access to care, they’re on their first ever open-ended strike.
Two key issues for the workers, all members of the National Union of Healthcare Workers, have been the subject of negotiation: wage increases and the union’s demand to increase the time therapists spend on tasks other than seeing patients.
UHW was an incubator of talent, organizers who are still bargaining for the common good, utilizing the power of the strike, and promoting a political agenda for labor that’s focused on issues, rather than personalities.
In the face of a steadily declining labor movement, unions are increasingly battling one another, devoting resources to gaining members from rivals rather than focusing on the 88.2% of the workforce that is not unionized. Recent "raids"have been especially big with tens of thousands of members at stake. They've become easier to carry off because many unions don't just represent one profession anymore, and can rationalize expanding into rival turf.
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