With strike coming to end, Bay Area Kaiser Permanente employees hope negotiations move forward

By Amanda Hari

More than 30,000 Kaiser Permanente nurses and health care professionals across California and Hawaii have been picketing for nearly a week. They are asking for solutions to unsafe staffing and wage inequalities.

But after five days, the picketing and striking will come to an end on Sunday morning. 

Physician Assistant Arezou Mansourian is hoping it’s enough to move negotiations forward.

“Kaiser was asking us to do more and more with less and less,” said Mansourian. 

That’s why Mansourian was part of the organizing committee to unionize. 

Many Kaiser employees unionized years ago, but the PAs, nurse anesthetists and midwives are some examples of groups that were not union. In July of 2023, they joined the United Health Care Professionals, and for nearly two years, they’ve been bargaining.

“This is our first contract, and they are making it difficult,” Mansourian stated. 

Union members say Kaiser’s proposals aren’t getting them to the going rate for their positions and over the last eight years, they’ve only received 1%-2% raises annually. She says it’s not enough to keep up with the cost of living.

“Kaiser has said in the news over and over, ‘Well, we’re offering 21.5% of a raise over four years.’ Well, if I break that down for you, it’s 6.5 the first year, 6.5 the second and some twos and threes the next years after that,” Mansourian explained. “Well, we are paid, as PAs, 30 to 40% under market.”

Mansourian says many Bay Area hospitals pay significantly more, making it hard to hire people and impacting the morale of the people who do work there.

“If we had more PAs, we’d be able to see people in a more time-efficient way,” said Mansourian. “We’d also be able to spend longer with patients. Kaiser has a reputation of trying to shorten their visits and that’s been a frustrating thing. The more patience they add on us, the less time we have to see patients.”

It pains her to see how this is affecting patients. This week, many patients had their appointments canceled because of the strike.

Employees will go back to their scheduled shifts starting Sunday at 7 a.m. During the strike, Kaiser and the union agreed to resume bargaining on Wednesday.

“The focus will be on economic issues,” Kaiser said in a statement. “While the Alliance has publicly emphasized staffing and other concerns, wages are the reason for the strike and the primary issue in negotiations.”

We remain committed to reaching an agreement that provides strong wage increases and enhances high-value medical plans and retiree benefits, while balancing our obligation to deliver high-quality care that remains affordable.”

Mansourian hopes that’s true, because she doesn’t want to see the public continue to suffer.

“We want to get back to seeing our patients,” Mansourian said. “We don’t take going on a strike lightly. We don’t like seeing patient care get delayed, but we know it’s actually for the best of patients. We know that on the other side, when we have a good contract, that will help patients get more timely access to us.”