Taking on a health care giant

IN A display of solidarity seldom seen in the labor movement in recent years, members of the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), the California Nurses Association (CNA) and the Operating Engineers took to the picket lines across the state of California for coordinated strike action last week.

The walkouts were in support of mental health workers at Kaiser Permanente, members of the NUHW, who are involved in a contract dispute.

In Southern California, NUHW members in the union's Psych-Social Chapter and Healthcare Professionals Chapter went on a two-day strike, and registered nurses represented by NUHW struck for three days at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center.

The CNA's September 22 walkout in support of the NUHW took place at numerous Kaiser Permanente facilities, with additional walkouts in the Bay Area at Children's Hospital Oakland and Sutter Health, another major hospital chain. The CNA was also highlighting its own fight against concessions, including cuts in health care and other benefits, as well as restrictions on nurses' ability to advocate for their patients.

In all, some 4,000 NUHW members, 23,000 CNA members and 2,000 members of the Operating Engineers participated.

The consequences of the health care bosses putting profits first became starkly clear in one of the CNA actions at a non-Kaiser facility.

Officials at Sutter Health's Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland responded to the one-day CNA strike by locking out nurses for five days and busing in replacements. When the nurses reported to work on Friday, they were barred from entering. Summit officials claimed this was about finances: "Once a strike is called, it would be financially irresponsible for hospitals to pay double to compensate both permanent staff and replacement workers."

But what's "irresponsible" is cutting corners with patient care. Despite the fact that the CNA said its nurses would go back to work in the case of an emergency situation, on September 24, a female patient at Alta Bates died as a result of medical error made by a scab nurse.

According to a CNA press release, hours before the death occurred, the union called on the California Department of Public Health to investigate Sutter Health in response to reports that the replacement nurses weren't fully qualified to do the jobs they were assigned to.

"An incident like this is chilling and strikes right to our nurses' concern about their ability to advocate for their patients," Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association-National Nurses United, told the San Francisco Chronicle. "It was irresponsible to lock out those nurses."

THE COORDINATED strike action was spearheaded by NUHW members at Kaiser Permanente. The NUHW was formed in 2009 by dissident members of United Healthcare Workers-West, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, who were fed up with SEIU's backroom dealing with employers and top-down internal regime.

NUHW called for this month's strike to put pressure on Kaiser Permanente, which is demanding concessions from union workers, despite making $5.9 billion in profits since 2009. These concessions include cuts to vacation and sick leave; cuts to health care benefits, including the elimination of retiree health coverage; and cuts to employee pension plans.

As one NUHW member at a Kaiser facility in Hollywood said in an interview, "Kaiser is the second-largest employer in California, and if its standards fall, that pulls down the middle class everywhere."

The union has also voiced anger over staffing levels in Kaiser facilities that are too low to ensure the safety of patients and nurses. NUHW and Kaiser have been in negotiation for over a year, with no sign of being close to a resolution.

The CNA and Operating Engineers Local 39, which has bargaining units in Kaiser facilities, voted to honor the NUHW's picket lines and strike in sympathy.

The attacks on health care workers' living standards come in the context of record profits for the hospital industry and massive compensation packages for hospital CEOs. The CEO of Sutter Health, for example, makes almost $4 million a year, while the CEO of Kaiser made nearly $8 million in 2009. According to NUHW President Sal Roselli, Kaiser executives can have has many as eight pension plans each.

Pickets all over the state were spirited and militant. At the Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center facility in Hollywood, NUHW members chanted, "Health care workers are under attack! What do we do? Stand up, fight back!" and picketed buses that were transporting scabs to the facility. The pickets moved to Kaiser's Pasadena headquarters on Friday.

In Redwood City, south of San Francisco, a spirited multiracial picket line chanted, "Kaiser, Kaiser, you can't hide, we can see your greedy side!"

Across from the picket line, standing shoulder to shoulder with Kaiser administrators and security was an SEIU-UHW member wearing his union shirt. SEIU-UHW, which is the NUHW's rival at Kaiser, reportedly teamed up with management to tell SEIU members they would face disciplinary action if they chose to honor the picket line.

In San Diego, more than 150 NUHW members--including psychologists, therapists, social workers, optical workers, health educators, dietitians, speech pathologists and audiologists--picketed Kaiser's hospital in San Diego's Allied Garden neighborhood.

Jim Clifford, a therapist and a Kaiser San Diego and NUHW negotiator, told demonstrators that Kaiser had issued a statement claiming it had not heard from the union since April. "I think they have heard from us today at least," he declared.

Sarah Schaffer, an NUHW social worker, told the crowd:

Remember Kaiser's last corporate slogan: "Say Yes." You can "Say Yes" to seeing your doctor in eight weeks. How about "Saying Yes" to good health care for your own employees as well as your patients? How about "Saying Yes" to secure retirement for people who have dedicated 20, 30, 40 years of their professional life to serving patients?

Robert, an NUHW psychologist, said "We have been building this strike up for weeks, talking to patients and having them sign letters of support. Every patient I spoke to has signed on; they don't want longer waits."

In San Francisco, pickets were set up at the main entrances of Kaiser facilities. Angela Karanja, a registered nurse and CNA member, said, "We're on the frontl ines of providing the community with health care, and when any member of the community is faced with cutbacks, we're there to fight back with them. Cuts benefit no one in the community, especially under this economy. If anything, cuts make the nation sicker."

The strike action of the NUHW, CNA and Operating Engineers should be an inspiration for the labor movement across the U.S. While many unions are accepting concessions, these workers are fighting them--and taking a stand not only for health care workers, but the patients the health care industry serves.