LOS ANGELES — The strike by some 31,000 Kaiser nurses and other health care workers, members of the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals, in California and Hawaii entered its second week Feb. 2.
The central issue the union is fighting for is enforceable rules to ensure nurse-to-patient ratios are actually followed.
So far, the union said in a Jan. 30 press release, Kaiser has failed to make any meaningful staffing proposal. “Our nurses are being asked to do the work of two people, sometimes without adequate CNAs [certified nurse assistants], without break relief, without charge nurses able to function in their actual role,” the union said.
“I’ve worked at Kaiser 18 years. I’m in the recovery room,” Sukarti Hill, a nurse at the company’s west Los Angeles hospital, told the Militant. “There have been increases in surgeries, but not increased staff — an increase from 35 to 50 patients a day.”
Kaiser management filed a lawsuit against the union Jan. 21 in federal court in the Central District of California seeking to negotiate individually with each local unit, not the coalition of unions they now face.
Sandra Flores, chief of staff for the Alliance of Health Care Unions, said the company was using this to break down bargaining. The union’s collective bargaining agreements with Kaiser Permanente expired Sept. 30.