After talks broke down earlier this week, a union representing nearly 2,000 Kaiser Permanente health care workers announced it plans to go on strike beginning Monday, Nov. 22.
According to Hawaii News Now, the strike would impact 20 Kaiser Permanente facilities across Hawaii.
“The challenge we are trying to address in partnership with our unions is the increasingly unaffordable cost of health care,” Kaiser Permanente Senior Vice President of Human Resources Arlene Peasnall told Hawaii News Now. “Wages and benefits account for half of Kaiser Permanente’s operational costs.”
The latest contract between the union and Kaiser Permanente expired on Sept. 30. Talks broke down earlier this month, and the union announced it would go on strike next week, according to the report.
The union says that 93 percent of its members voted to authorize the strike.
“No more health care heroes turning into health care zeroes," Stephanie Meredith, a ward clerk in labor and delivery at Kaiser’s Moanalua facility, said, according to Hawaii News Now. "We’re going to fight for what we’re worth, for the future of our jobs and our community. We will be here for as long as it takes until Kaiser Permanente wakes up and gets it right.”
Key sticking points for the union are wages and staffing shortages, which it claims Kaiser Permanente has not addressed.
