Kaiser Strikers Reach Tentative OK on New Pact, 2-Tier Pay Plan

Striking workers at 27 Kaiser Permanente medical facilities in Northern California reached a tentative agreement with the hospital chain Thursday on a new contract that includes a modified version of the geographically based two-tier wage plan that has been at the heart of the labor dispute.

The proposed contract includes a narrower wage differential in the two-tier plan than did an earlier contract proposal rejected by a vote of union members last week. Negotiators for Service Employees International Union, Local 250, who sent the previous contract to a vote without recommendation, are backing approval of the latest offer, and union leaders said Thursday that they expect it to be approved. Union members will vote Saturday.

The bitter, 45-day labor dispute has idled 9,400 workers at Kaiser facilities serving more than 2 million subscribers, about 1 in 4 Californians living in the northern part of the state.

None of Kaiser’s nine Southern California medical facilities were affected by the strike. However, a two-tier wage structure will likely be a negotiating issue when talks on a new contract between Kaiser Permanente and its Southern California unions get under way next month, union and management officials said Thursday.

Pay Less

The new Northern California contract offer, like the proposal rejected by a 55%-to-45% vote last week, would pay new Kaiser employees hired at facilities outside the San Francisco Bay Area less than newly hired workers in cities such as Oakland, San Jose, Santa Clara and San Francisco. But the latest proposal narrowed the pay differential between new and existing employees to 15%, down from last week’s proposal of 20%. Kaiser’s original offer, overwhelmingly voted down when workers first walked out on Oct. 27, called for a 30% differential.

“We feel good about what we accomplished,” said Ray Abernathy, a union spokesman who was on the negotiating team. “We whittled an enormous employer down from 30% to 15%. We have a contract we can take back to our membership, and we expect it will be approved.”

Kaiser, the nation’s oldest and largest health maintenance organization, maintained that it needed a two-tier wage structure to lower its labor costs in order to remain competitive and expand, particularly outside the Bay Area, where company officials said other medical plans are successfully battling for a larger share of the health-care market.

“Two-tier was the last thing we wanted,” said Robbie Hansford, a union negotiator. “But people are being realistic about taking the best proposal we can to the members.”

On the picket line outside Kaiser’s San Francisco medical office building Thursday afternoon, the mood was ambivalent. These same workers were some of the most militant in opposing the two-tier proposal and voted to reject the last proposed contract.

“It seems to me we’re going to have to take two-tier,” said George Hall, a Kaiser truck driver. “After seven weeks, and especially with Christmas coming, you go home with doubts: Am I doing the right thing staying out here? Sooner or later you have to give in.”

Striker frustrations clearly mounted this week, with scores of pickets arrested since Monday for blocking entrances at Kaiser facilities, trespassing and vandalism. In the first six weeks of the strike, only a handful of such incidents had been reported. Moreover, the union had depleted its strike benefits fund of more than $1 million. The final checks, for $45, were mailed Dec. 5.

Under the proposed contract, newly hired employees at Kaiser facilities in Santa Rosa, Vallejo, Napa, Santa Rosa and the Sacramento area would start at wages 15% less than those newly hired in the Bay Area. Pharmacists, however, are exempted from the two-tier plan.

Current employees would receive bonuses of $1,000 in the first year, $850 in the second year and a 3% raise in the third year of the pact. New employees would receive $850 bonuses in the second year of the pact and a 3% wage increase in the third year. The union had demanded 5% raises each year.

The contract would also create two lower entry-level wage steps for all new Kaiser employees in Northern California.

Current wage levels for striking workers range from $9.14 an hour for housekeepers to $20.13 an hour for pharmacists.

Another controversial contract provision would require that any new worker transferred to another Kaiser facility must accept that location’s wage scale, even if it is lower. This would not apply to current workers.

An amnesty clause, that was included in last week’s rejected offer, was included with one sentence deleted. Kaiser officials say the clause would protect workers who crossed the picket line from retaliation by the union, an interpretation disputed by union officials, who say the deleted sentence allows them to discipline or fine those who crossed the pickets.