A three-day strike by thousands of Kaiser Permanente health care workers kicked off Wednesday morning, impacting everything from surgeries to prescription access across the Bay Area.
At the health care giant’s San Jose medical center, hundreds of workers pushing for higher wages and better working conditions chanted, waved signs and shook purple and gold pom-poms to enthusiastic honking from passing drivers.
“We’re short-staffed — I’m doing the job of two people,” said Julio Rivera, 57, an anesthesiology technician who has worked at the medical center for 29 years and was marching the picket line with a bullhorn. “I can’t keep up with my bills. Everything is up. Gas is up. Food is up. I have a car payment.”
Across the bay at Kaiser’s Oakland Medical Center, many drivers honked in solidarity with the hundreds of workers who took to the picket line. But not all. One man stuck his head out the window while passing by, and yelled, “You guys should go back to work, there’s a bunch of sick people!”
The Bay Area job action is part of the largest health care strike in U.S. history, with 75,000 Kaiser workers across the country stopping work over pay and understaffing that affects patient care, according to the workers’ unions. Workers also picketed in Fremont, Redwood City, Santa Clara, Antioch, Richmond, San Francisco, South San Francisco, San Leandro, Walnut Creek, Vallejo and Santa Rosa. Picket lines also went up across Southern California, as well as Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
The health care giant serves 9.4 million patients in California. Its contract with tens of thousands of workers expired Sept. 30. The company on Wednesday said negotiations were continuing and that “there has been a lot of progress, with agreements reached on several specific proposals.”
Wednesday’s strike continued a recent pattern of disputes between Kaiser, its workers and labor organizers. Last year, mental health professionals walked out amid demands that the health care provider increase staffing. In 2021, facilities were affected as health care workers participated in a sympathy strike as engineers engaged in a dispute lasting months.
Yvonne Esquivel, 46, a pediatric medical assistant at Kaiser’s medical offices in Gilroy, said Kaiser has failed to replace enough workers after large numbers fled health care careers amid upheaval from the COVID pandemic.
“We are all just burnt out,” said Esquivel, a negotiations observer for the largest union, the SEIU-United Health Workers. “We are tired of doing the work of two or three people when people vacate their posts. The time we have to interact with our patients and make them comfortable — we don’t have that anymore.”
Kaiser said the strike did not involve its nurses union or physicians, and hospitals and emergency departments would be open during the strike. “Our facilities will be staffed by our physicians, trained and experienced managers and staff, and in some cases, we will augment with licensed and qualified contract staff,” Kaiser said Wednesday in a statement.
Still, some non-urgent appointments and procedures may be delayed, with patients contacted in advance to reschedule, the company said.
Kaiser shut down some out-patient pharmacies. Patients visiting the Oakland Medical Center pharmacy at 3600 Broadway said it was jam-packed early Wednesday morning as other nearby Kaiser pharmacies shuttered.
“It was crazy when I came in there,” said Gary Haynes, 70, who picked up medicine for his mother. “There were so many people.”
Kaiser urged patients to order medications by mail at kp.org/pharmacy or by calling 888-218-6245 in Northern California.
At Kaiser in San Jose, as more than 500 workers picketed at a one intersection, patients described efficient functioning inside the medical center.
Bibi Bruce, 74, showed up for a knee injection to treat debilitating osteoarthritis, thinking the strike might prevent her from having the treatment, she said. Instead, she received it promptly, with the nurse telling her shifts had been changed to ensure important procedures would go ahead. “They’re extremely well organized,” said Bruce, a retired teacher. “I was really impressed.”
Workers voted to strike for up to 10 days, and the three-day strike could be extended if negotiations fail to bear fruit.
The job action comes amid a nationwide escalation in labor unrest, with several high-profile strikes involving Hollywood writers, actors, auto workers and hotel workers. Gov. Gavin Newsom recently vetoed a bill that would given unemployment benefits to striking workers in California.
Unions say understaffing could lead to dangerously long wait times, mistakes in diagnosis and patient neglect. The unions want raises of about 6% a year for four years. Kaiser said recently that it leads in total compensation everywhere it operates, and has offered a $23 an hour minimum wage starting next year for California workers. The company said it has hired more than 50,000 workers in the last two years nationally, including 9,800 into jobs represented by the unions planning to strike.
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Keyli Campbell, a Kaiser medical assistant and union steward, said Wednesday the health care giant is out-of-touch with its overworked staff, who are also feeling the bite of rising prices.
“Y’all know what you pay in premiums,” Campbell said. “I don’t make hardly any of that. In 2020, we were heroes. Now we’re being treated like zeroes.”
