More than 1,000 unionized healthcare workers and their supporters plan to protest Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente on Labor Day.
The workers are represented by the Service Employees International Union – United Healthcare Workers West. They intend to march to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Downey, Calif., to protest plans they say would negatively affect patient care.
According to the union, those plans include outsourcing various employees, including 70 pharmacy warehouse workers in Downey, 34 couriers at a laboratory in North Hollywood, Calif., and 96 pharmacy warehouse workers in Oakland and Livermore, Calif. Union officials also claim Kaiser Permanente plans to move 742 jobs from call centers in Hollywood, Baldwin Park and Woodland Hills to other areas of California, as well as close a skilled nursing facility in Manteca, Calif., effective Oct. 31.
"Kaiser Permanente is raking in money and yet it's acting like it has no choice but to outsource employees and relocate others to areas where they would be paid far less," Steve Allman, a 16-year Kaiser Permanente employee in Downey, said in a prepared statement. "Families like mine will have the legs cut out from under us and patients will suffer."
In a statement to Becker's, John Nelson, vice president of communications at Kaiser Permanente, noted the planned informational picketing is not a walkout, and said care delivery and operations will not be affected. He also expressed disappointment in the union's claims.
"The truth is Kaiser Permanente is growing and adding jobs. As one of the largest private employers in California with more than 149,000 employees and 16,000 physicians, we have added more than 13,000 jobs in the state since 2015. We have more than 12,000 open staff positions and will continue to add many kinds of jobs, including blue collar jobs. The number of our employees represented by SEIU-UHW has grown by more than 8,000 over the same period," he wrote.
"We are disappointed that the current leadership of SEIU-UHW has chosen to mischaracterize Kaiser Permanente's strong commitment to labor and to pursue an adversarial, destructive approach."
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