Healthcare workers picket outside Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, on Oct. 5. Photo by Etienne Laurent/EPA-EFE
Oct. 13 (UPI) — Kaiser Permanente and the unions representing 75,000 of its workers reached a tentative agreement on a new contract that comes a week after a massive three-day strike conducted by the employees.
The unions pointed to the support of acting Labor Secretary Julie Su in getting the tentative deal done, which still has to be voted on by rank-and-file union members.
“The frontline healthcare workers of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions are excited to have reached a tentative agreement with Kaiser Permanente as of this morning,” the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions said in a statement on Facebook.
The strike, which was launched on Oct. 4 and included hundreds of Kaiser facilities across California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Virginia and Washington D.C. was the largest in U.S. healthcare history.
While doctors and nurses did not participate in the strike, frontline workers including pharmacists, vocational nurses, housekeepers, medical assistants, emergency department technicians, radiology technicians, and respiratory therapists walked off of the job.
Details of the agreement were not immediately released but the strike sought better pay, retiree medical plans and job protections against subcontracting and outsourcing.
Ahead of the strike, the union said frontline healthcare workers have repeatedly raised concerns with Kaiser executives about “how the Kaiser short staffing crisis is harming workers and patients but they aren’t listening.”