Kaiser employees rally for higher pay
For the past month, Kaiser Permanente employees and union representatives have picketed outside Kaiser hospitals throughout the state to demand additional support following a year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The pickets have sought to address issues including staffing shortages and safety and to demand a bonus for employees who worked during the pandemic, among other things.
On Friday, a small group of Kaiser health care workers as well as representatives of the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Workers West gathered on the curb in front of Kaiser’s Vacaville campus to demand recognition for the work they have done during the pandemic beyond public campaigns labeling them as heroes. The picketers carried signs with slogans like “Respect Healthcare Workers” and “This hero is treated like a zero” and led chants of “Hey hey, ho ho! Kaiser’s greed has got to go!”
Christina Lett, an organizing representative for SEIU UHW, said Kaiser’s union met with management and reportedly asked for members to be paid a full bonus, which would be a 100 percent payout of their previous Performance Sharing Plan goal. She claimed that Kaiser instead deducted 15 percent from the payout for not improving attendance.
“The goal is to get Kaiser to pay out what they agree and to treat their employees who have worked very hard during a pandemic with the respect they deserve,” she said.
In a statement, Arlene Peasnall, Kaiser’s senior vice president of human resources, denied that the health care consortium penalized employees for not achieving attendance goals.
“Kaiser Permanente guaranteed our 160,000 labor-represented employees receive at least 100% of their target 2020 performance or appreciation bonus,” she wrote. “The average payment for SEIU-UHW-represented employees
was over $2,200, reflecting 112% of the target amount. We also provided $375 million in employee assistance during the past year to ensure that frontline employees had access to alternate housing options, special childcare grants, and two full weeks of additional paid leave for COVID-19 illness and exposure.”
Still, Kaiser employees feel the past year has been stressful and created burnout. Radiologic technologist Andrina Broussard said at the start of the pandemic, employees had qualms about the availability of personal protective equipment.
“Kaiser didn’t have a lot of PPE to give to us (at the time),” she said. “We had a lot of concerns about that.”
Broussard said employees started bringing in their own masks and were told by management they could not do so. Once nurses unions began protesting, she said management then said they could bring in their own PPE until Kaiser had enough to provide for everyone.
Additionally, Broussard said that Kaiser was already understaffed before the pandemic, but once the hospital started resuming outpatient services it really became apparent.
“We started doing outpatient CAT scans, outpatient MRIs, outpatient bone density procedures, outpatient mammograms,” she said. “Then they started scheduling surgeries, opening that back up, and so as a radiology department we service all these…WE were just seeing across the board understaffing.”
Broussard also said some employees reached a point where they were working double shifts.
“I worked 20-hour shifts twice during this pandemic,” she said. “You’ve got people working double shifts two to three times a week. Staff are getting burnt out.”
Broussard also said employees have quit during this time. She has a father with prostate cancer and was constantly worried she would bring the virus home with her.
Charnae Tolliver, an inpatient pharmacy technician at the Vallejo campus, said she has seen coworkers get the coronavirus and was especially worried when PPE was not as readily available.
“We had to go through exposed areas,” she said.
Broussard said SEIU UHW has been trying to push for the passage of Assembly Bill 650, also known as the Health Care Worker Recognition and Retention Act. The legislation by Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, D-Rolling Hills Estates, aims to require large health care employers to pay non-management employees bonuses if they work during the pandemic. Under this, full-time employees would get $10,000, part-timers would get $6,000 and lessthan-part-time employees would receive $4,000.
“That’s a way to help retain people,” she said.
Overall, Broussard hopes Kaiser will support and recognize its employees.
“Kaiser needs to do right by us as the labor workforce who are there on a day-today basis working with the positive patients and the patients under investigation for this coronavirus,” she said.