2015 bargaining

Finding ways to help Kaiser Permanente employees enjoy long, healthy, productive lives is the mission of the Total Health and Workplace Safety subgroup.

The subgroup, one of three in national bargaining this year, will expand upon the achievements of the 2012 National Agreement. It will also address how Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions can partner to improve the total health of the communities we serve.

Delivering exceptional care and service and supporting a healthier, injury-free workforce go hand in hand. “We can’t provide quality, affordable care to our members and communities unless we first provide a safe and respectful environment that promotes the collective health of our workforce,” says Kathy Gerwig, Kaiser Permanente’s vice president of employee safety, health and wellness and the management co-lead for the subgroup.

Personal and collective health

In 2012, negotiators established the groundbreaking Total Health Incentive Plan. The wellness program encourages employees to assess their own health and aim for collective improvement in measures like cholesterol and body mass index. In addition, healthy employees can serve as role models for Kaiser Permanente patients.

This year, the parties will suggest ways to create a healthier, safer work environment by improving employee access to services such as wellness coaching and better understanding trends in workplace violence and prevention. Another goal is to encourage employees to eat healthily, exercise at breaks and prevent workplace violence and intimidation.  

Expanding wellness to communities

In a first for national bargaining, the subgroup will also suggest ways to bring a holistic approach to wellness into communities Kaiser Permanente serves, especially those with limited access to healthy food, affordable health services and places to exercise.

“Our union members tend to live in communities that have high needs around health or issues around violence,” says Meg Niemi, the president of SEIU Local 49 and also a union co-lead for the subgroup. “So our members have an interest in their communities being healthier and safer further upstream, before they need critical care.”

The other two subgroups tasked with crafting recommendations are Work of the Future and Operational and Service Excellence in Partnership. (For more on Work of the Future, watch this slideshow and read this article.) Negotiators are developing a tentative agreement that will become the National Agreement after it is approved by Kaiser Permanente leadership and ratified by union locals this summer.

Visit bargaining2015.org for more information, videos and slideshows, and to sign up for bargaining updates.

Equipping frontline workers with the skills and knowledge for tomorrow’s jobs—an essential element in preserving Kaiser Permanente’s competitive edge—is the focus of the Work of the Future subgroup at National Bargaining.

The negotiations this year focus on three topics, in addition to wages and benefits:

• Workforce planning
• Training and development
• Innovation and technology

“Health care is changing,” says Hal Ruddick, the executive director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions. “We have a huge new influx of members because of the Affordable Care Act. We have to meet their needs differently—and we can do that through the solutions we create bargaining in partnership.”

Planning for change

Flexibility, foresight and planning are essential to developing a workforce that is ready for coming changes in the health care industry, said Zeth Ajemian, the director of Workforce Planning and Development for Southern California and Hawaii.

“To prepare our workforce for the future, we need to align staffing with current care delivery transformation, innovation and new technologies that meet the evolving needs of our members,” he says. “We're entering a tremendous era of change. A portion or all of an employee's work will change and their skills, training and experience will need to change to fit that job.”

Creating career pathways that allow current KP employees to move into new roles is essential, says Brian Lockhart, security lead at Sunnyside Medical Center in the Northwest and a member of ILWU Local 28.

“We want some flexibility around the experience component,” says Lockhart, who explained that employees who have trained for new roles are sometimes unable to move into them because they don’t have the necessary work experience.

Role of technology

Leveraging technology to meet the emerging needs of our patients will be another key issue for the bargaining team, says Dennis Dabney, senior vice president of Labor Relations and the Labor Management Partnership.

“We need to decide how we bring that new technology into our work environment,” he says. “We need to react more to what our patients want, rather than what we want to give them.”

Whatever innovations are designed and implemented in the future, frontline workers need to be engaged from the start, say union partners.

“Kaiser Permanente is on that bullet train toward the future and if the labor movement is not on that train, we are going to be left behind,” says Janis Thorn, interim president of United Steelworkers Local 7600.

Work of the Future is one of three subgroups tasked with crafting the next National Agreement. The other two are Total Health and Workplace Safety, and Operational and Service Excellence in Partnership.

Visit bargaining2015.org for more information, videos and slideshows, and to sign up for bargaining updates.