‘No Large Crisis,’ Kaiser Says as Strike Begins : Walkout: As thousands of workers hit the bricks, the company said that it has been preparing for a work stoppage since contract talks began in January.

Thousands of Kaiser Permanente employees took to picket lines Monday, launching a strike against the nation’s oldest and largest health maintenance organization that will affect patients and health facilities in Orange, Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

Kaiser officials said there were no disruptions in medical care at the seven hospitals and more than 40 clinics affected by the walkout. Officials said they had been preparing contingency plans for a work stoppage since January, when contract negotiations began.

“There’s no large crisis; things have gone pretty much as planned,” said Jack Davis, director of Kaiser’s Southern California regional hospital services.

Hospital supervisors and workers from unaffected Kaiser facilities elsewhere in the state stepped in to fill jobs vacated by nearly 10,000 striking technicians, maintenance workers and licensed vocational nurses who went on strike at 12:01 a.m. Monday after rejecting Kaiser’s offer of a three-year, $44-million contract.

Davis said that outpatient services were operating normally and that about 150 patients had been transferred over the weekend to community hospitals and Kaiser facilities elsewhere in the state unaffected by the strike. The overall number of patients in struck facilities has been reduced to about 50% of normal, and officials said the lower patient load could be handled by supervisors and substitute workers. Kaiser Permanente medical centers in Anaheim, Bellflower, Harbor City, Panorama City, Woodland Hills, West Los Angeles and Los Angeles were affected by the walkout, but no Kaiser facilities have been forced to close, officials said.

Of 997 union members who work for Kaiser in Orange County, 515 are on the Anaheim Hills hospital staff, according to Donna Drasner, director of public relations for Kaiser in Orange County.

To make up for the loss, 100 staff members from unaffected Kaiser facilities were brought in. An unspecified number of union members are crossing picket lines as well, Drasner said.

All elective surgeries scheduled in Anaheim Hills have been postponed, and only emergency cases are being admitted to the 200-bed facility, which had 97 patients Monday afternoon. Humana Hospital-West Anaheim and a Kaiser medical center in Riverside are providing backup services.

Six of 10 Kaiser outpatient clinics in Orange County remain open on a walk-in basis. Patients at the closed

facilities, one each in Irvine and Fountain Valley and two in Anaheim, are being referred to those in operation, Drasner said.

Union officials, however, contended that the strike was having an impact, deterring many patients who would otherwise seek treatment at a Kaiser facility.

“Picketers are all reporting that walk-in traffic at the hospitals is much lighter than before the strike,” said union vice president David Stilwell. “Everyone realizes that the hospital staffs are not going to be there. Those (who) do come in for treatment are finding the wait is worse than usual.”

Meanwhile, Kaiser personnel staffed a control center at the health organization’s Pasadena corporate offices, directing the more than 1,000 nonunion employees sent from throughout the state to fill in at strike-affected facilities. A similar operation is set up on the eighth floor of the Anaheim Hills medical center to help with Orange County operations.

“There’s a lot of management people who are wielding brooms,” Kaiser spokeswoman Janice Seib said. “A lot of the people who are filling in are management people, and they’ll work for as long as they have to.”

“I’ve been emptying trash cans and cleaning rooms,” said Kaylyn Wallace, a nurse clinician in the Anaheim Hills maternity ward.

Though a union negotiating team recommended its approval, members of the Service Employees International Union Local 399 voted 2 to 1 to reject a contract offer that would have guaranteed 5% raises for Kaiser employees in the union during the contract’s first year and 3% raises in each of the following two years, officials said.

The striking workers represent about 90% of the 11,000 who are union members, Stilwell said. And both sides said it is up to the other to bring the contract dispute back to the bargaining table.

“There are no further plans to negotiate with Kaiser,” Stilwell said. “Management knows at this point what is expected, and they feel they can’t meet it. We are obviously ready to meet if Kaiser decides they have something new to offer.”

Union officials contend that their members have had to do without adequate wage increases since the early 1980s, when the number of companies belonging to Kaiser’s medical plan fell and employees were told that they would have to endure small or no wage increases until the hospitals regained a stable membership.

Though Stilwell declined to give specific union demands, he said that “a double-digit raise in the first year (of a contract) would more than likely settle it.”

But Seib said Kaiser’s offer still stands. “Our feeling is it’s really up to the union to make the next move.”

Outside hospitals and clinics throughout Southern California, striking workers and their supporters carried picket signs and chanted for more money.

‘New hires are getting paid almost as much as I am, and I’ve been here 19 years,” ultra-sound technician Dawn White said as she picketed outside the Anaheim Hills hospital. “The (company) should be rewarding us for our service.”

“We’re the people who get the jobs done,” agreed picket Greg Rhodes, an orthopedic technician. “They keep expanding and letting more members in, but they don’t want to pay us to supply them (with services). We just keep working more and more with no increase in pay.”

Times staff writers John Johnson, Wendy Paulson and Shari Roan contributed to this story.