Kaiser Union Votes Monday on Contract

Striking Kaiser Permanente workers returned to the picket lines Saturday pending a ratification vote on a new contract offer from the nation’s largest and oldest health maintenance organization.

A statement from the union for the 11,000 workers who walked out Monday said that union negotiators agreed Friday to let the membership vote on the proposed three-year deal because it included improvements in salary in the second and third years, “longevity compensation” for longtime employees, and a guarantee that workers could use a floating holiday for Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.

Kaiser and Local 399 of the Hospital and Service Employees International Union announced late Friday that the offer would be presented to the rank-and-file for a vote Monday. If approved, the agreement would end the strike immediately after the vote, union officials said Friday.

The union, however, said it intended to present the offer without a recommendation, leaving it unclear whether union leaders support the proposed pact.

The membership rejected the last Kaiser offer March 30 despite the union’s recommendation that it be accepted. That $44 million proposal called for salary increases of 5% to 6% in the first year and 3% to 5% in the second and third years.

Employees contend they have had no meaningful wage increases since the early 1980s, when the number of companies belonging to Kaiser’s medical plan began to decrease and employees were told they would have to live with small or no wage increases until the hospitals regained a stable membership.

The new offer emerged after three days of federally mediated talks between the union and Kaiser. According to their statement, the union agreed to put the pact up for a vote “at the express request” of Bernard de Lury, the national director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.

The voting will be supervised by a local federal mediator. Until the vote is complete, picketing will continue at all Kaiser locations affected by the strike, union spokesman Tom Ramsay said.

Mary Horwatt, a Kaiser spokeswoman, declined to detail the offer other than to characterize as it as “fair.”

Most of the 11,200 service, clerical and technical employees at seven Kaiser hospitals and 45 clinics in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties walked off the job Monday, forcing curtailments in medical care for HMO members.

Kaiser has transferred several hundred patients from the affected hospitals to other Kaiser facilities and most elective surgeries were canceled or postponed. The number of admitted patients has dropped to an average 47% of capacity at the seven hospitals.

Outpatient care at the hospitals and clinics in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties has remained at 60% to 70% of normal.

Supervisors and substitute workers were filling in for some of the striking employees and the company maintains that there have been no serious disruptions in medical care.

Kaiser Permanente serves 6.2 million members nationwide and 2.2 million in Southern California. About 90% of its members are enrolled through group plans or through their employers.