Kaiser Permanente and unions reach tentative deal after employees strike

A week after almost half of Kaiser Permanente Colorado’s employees walked out, they reached a tentative agreement with the health system for what they called historic pay raises and a plan to recruit and train thousands of new workers.

The deal is part of an agreement between Kaiser Permanente Colorado’s parent company and unions representing about 75,000 workers in multiple states. It would affect roughly 3,000 workers in Colorado, who will vote next week on whether to ratify the proposed contract.

Service Employees International Union Local 105, which represents the affected employees in Colorado, said the deal would include a 21% raise over four years, which it called the largest pay increase in Kaiser Permanente’s history. It also includes a gradual increase in the minimum wage in Kaiser Permanente’s Colorado facilities, reaching $23 an hour by 2026; an agreement to tie some bonuses to patients’ health outcomes; and more funds dedicated to employees’ continuing education and retirement health care benefits.

“This agreement is nothing short of historic,” Stephanie Felix-Sowy, President of SEIU Local 105, said in a news release. “It’s a massive step in the right direction towards truly addressing the crisis in patient care and reducing wait times.”

The agreement also would head off another possible strike in November. Almost half of Kaiser Permanente Colorado’s 6,800 employees participated in a three-day strike starting Oct. 4, and their leaders had said they could walk out again if they didn’t reach a deal on a contract this month.

Steve Shields, senior vice president of national labor relations for Kaiser Permanente, said the deal is mutually beneficial and an important step toward reducing the shortage of health care workers. Provisions of the contract would speed up hiring and put more resources into training employees who took nontraditional routes into health care.

“I’m very excited about this agreement. I think it is great for Kaiser Permanente. I think it is great for our employees,” he said Friday afternoon.

According to The Associated Press, the coalition had given notice that it would strike again in early November if there was no deal by then. A second strike could have been even larger, because the contract for about 3,000 workers in the Seattle area was set to expire on Oct. 31.

In Colorado, office visits continued on schedule during last week’s strike, though multiple locations had to curtail x-ray services and shut down their labs and pharmacies. Kaiser Permanente Colorado, which is both a health care provider and a nonprofit insurance company, has about 500,000 members and runs 33 medical offices.

Both sides seemed to want to quickly put the strike behind them during a joint media briefing with U.S. Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su on Friday afternoon. It was the first strike at Kaiser Permanente in 26 years, and one of the largest involving health care workers in U.S. history.

Shields said the pandemic was a watershed moment, with management and the workforce still figuring out what a partnership will look like in the future. He and others credited Su for helping them find common ground to build from.

“Our worlds are much different. Our work is much different,” he said.

Caroline Lucas, executive director of the coalition, said it was a longstanding tenet at Kaiser Permanente that frontline workers were the experts on what patients and their fellow employees needed. It drifted from that focus in recent years, but the new contract would help to return to a more equal partnership, she said.

“I think this is the first step,” she said.

Jacob Factor contributed to this report.