Health care workers approve new Kaiser Permanente contract after yearlong negotiations

Health care workers represented by the Oregon Federation of Nurses & Health Professionals, AFT Local 5017, AFL-CIO voted to approve a new contract with Kaiser Permanente after a year of bargaining, a five-day strike in October and a vote of no confidence in Kaiser CEO Greg Adams.

The agreement was approved by 90 percent of voting members, with a total voter turnout of 78 percent.

The ratified contract covers more than 4,500 health care workers across Oregon and Southwest Washington. About 400 of them work in Southwest Washington.

Sarina Roher, president of the Oregon Federation of Nurses & Health Professionals, said the newly ratified contract delivers 21.5 percent in across-the-board wage increases, with additional market adjustments in the first year that will push total increases above 30 percent for some workers over the life of the contract.

It also protects health care and retirement benefits and aligns contract expiration dates across all six bargaining units. Other significant provisions for the union include increased tuition reimbursement, expanded health care coverage for families, paid lactation breaks and improved accommodations, stronger minimum wage protections and guardrails on the adoption of artificial intelligence technologies.

“This victory belongs to our members and the communities who stood with us every step of the way,” Roher said in a news release. “Through our unity on the job and the incredible support we received from patients, community allies and union siblings across the labor movement we were able to win a contract that builds power for the future.”

Kaiser Permanente declined to comment.

In December, the union reached local tentative agreements for all six of its bargaining units, but members could not vote to ratify the contracts because of unresolved bargaining issues affecting a national alliance of unions.

Kaiser Permanente and the Alliance of Health Care Unions, comprised of 23 unions across the country, bargained for more than a year, the longest period in national bargaining history, according to a previous statement by the health care organization.

Kaiser Permanente proposed to move the remaining open items in national bargaining to each union’s local table, without having to rely on national bargaining.

In doing so, Kaiser Permanente hoped the approach would allow it to reach contract agreements with each union that was prepared to do so, which is essentially what played out, said Kellen Wilson, chief of staff for the Oregon Federation of Nurses & Health Professionals.

Wilson said the most recent agreement directs key terms — such as wages, benefits and working conditions — to local agreements.

The remaining part of the agreement will be added to a new document called the “partnership addendum,” which will address Alliance Health Care Unions programs, partnership funding, structures and scope.

While the national agreement was modified, the union still preserved all the improvements reached in national bargaining.

Wilson said typically once an agreement is met, union members receive retroactive pay dating back to when their original contract expired with new wage scale adjustments. However, Kaiser Permanente refused to provide retroactive back pay to October when the contract expired.

Union members may not see the increase reflected in their paychecks until July and will only receive retroactive back pay to March, when the new contract was ratified.