Kaiser Pickets Scarce Pending Pact Vote

Union officials scrambled to get striking Kaiser Permanente workers back on the picket lines Saturday, when only a handful showed up after learning Friday of a new contract offer.

At least 95% of Kaiser’s 11,200 licensed vocational nurses, technicians and maintenance workers walked off the job last Monday over a wage dispute.

The walkout forced major reductions in service at the seven hospitals and 40 clinics in the Southland operated by Kaiser, the nation’s oldest and largest health maintenance organization.

One union official said Saturday that the proposed three-year contract--which union members will vote on Monday--does not go far enough to meet union demands.

But with a possible settlement so close at hand, many strikers who had manned the picket lines all week decided to take Saturday off.

At the 212-bed Kaiser hospital in Woodland Hills, only three of the more than 800 striking employees were picketing Saturday morning. At another facility in Panorama City, the picket captain called the union hot line complaining he was the only one who showed up, said Dick Shepherd, who fielded calls at the hot line for Local 399 of the Service Employees International Union.

“Before there was a mob out there,” Shepherd said. “The (union) staff is calling these people to get their butts out there. Nothing’s over until the ballots are counted.”

If the proposal is accepted, strikers may return to work as soon as Tuesday, said union spokesman Tom Ramsay. The strike will continue, he said, until a settlement is reached.

The striking workers will vote on a wage pact that is two percentage points greater than the last wage offer put forward by Kaiser--a $44-million proposal that was soundly trounced in a membership vote last month.

Kaiser spokeswoman Janice Seib said the new pact--which union leaders agreed Friday to present to the membership--calls for raises of 5% to 6% in the first year and 3% to 7% for each of the next two years.

Under the rejected wage proposal, raises after the first year ranged from 3% to 5%.

“We don’t think the changes are significant enough,” said Ramsay, explaining why union officials are presenting the latest offer without recommending acceptance.

Even though union leaders supported the earlier proposal and were surprised at its defeat, “our standards are higher” now that a strike is on, he said.

Employees contend that they have had no meaningful wage increases since the early 1980s, when the number of companies belonging to Kaiser’s medical plan declined and workers were told only small wage increases would be in sight until the hospitals regained a stable membership.

Seib said the new pact also includes increased bilingual, longevity and shift differentials.

Union members will vote on the proposal at ratification meetings at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Monday in eight locations in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

The vote will be supervised by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, which requested that the union put the proposal up for a membership vote.

The new offer emerged Friday after three days of mediated negotiations between the union and Kaiser.