Kaiser Permanente

The Labor Management Partnership operates in seven of Kaiser Permanente's eight operating regions across the United States. These regions serve the needs of their respective KP members and patients, guided by a common set of partnership principles and practices. Learn more about each.

Colorado

Serves 541,000 members in 34 medical offices. Of its 256 unit-based teams, 188 (73 percent) were rated high performing as of June 2021.

Georgia

Serves 316,000 members in 29 medical offices. Of its 108 unit-based teams, 94 (87 percent) were rated high performing as of June 2021.

Hawaii

Serves 258,000 members throughout the islands, in 24 medical offices and one hospital. Of its 60 unit-based teams, 54 (90 percent) were rated high performing as of June 2021.

Mid-Atlantic States

Serves 787,000 members in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia in 39 medical offices. Of its 277 unit-based teams, 213 (77 percent) were rated high performing as of June 2021.

Northern California

Serves 4.5 million members in 249 medical offices and 35 hospitals. Of its 1,347 unit-based teams, 1,006 (75 percent) were rated high performing as of June 2021.

• LMP NCAL [KP intranet]

Northwest

Serves 633,000 members in Oregon and Southwest Washington, in 59 medical and dental offices and three hospitals. Of its 407 unit-based teams, 280 (69 percent) were rated high performing as of June 2021.

• LMP Northwest [KP intranet]

Southern California

Serves 4.7 million members in 257 medical offices and 19 hospitals. Of its 1,115 unit-based teams, 789 (71 percent) were rated high performing as of June 2021.

Washington

Serves more than 688,000 members in the Puget Sound area and east to Spokane with 48 medical facilities and one hospital. The Washington region became part of Kaiser Permanente  in 2017. The region's LMP council held its first meeting in Q2-2019.

• KP Washington LMP [KP intranet]

National Functions

These departments (Finance, Health Plan Administration and IT) serve KP members, patients and staff across the program. Of 81 unit-based teams, 50 (62 percent) were rated high performing as of June 2021.

Independent studies into the Labor Management Partnership. 

How Labor-Management Partnerships Improve Patient Care, Cost Control, and Labor Relations [opens PDF]

A 2012 Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations study of labor partnerships at 3 health care systems, including Kaiser Permanente.

Building a Collaborative Enterprise

This 2011 Harvard Business Review article shows how Kaiser Permanente, our Labor Management Partnership and other leading organizations are redefining way companies do business.

Study of High-Performing Teams

Researchers from Rutgers University, Johns Hopkins and Kaiser Permanente identified 5 key enablers of unit-based team performance and development (2011). 

Negotiating in Partnership: A Case Study

This report traces the landmark 2005 labor negotiations and the resulting contract (2006).

The Kaiser Permanente Labor Management Partnership: 2002-2004

This MIT report analyzes LMP’s evolution from 2002 to 2004 and identifies issues and challenges that emerged in those years (2005).

The Kaiser Permanente Labor Management Partnership: The First Five Years

MIT researchers trace the early evolution of the Labor Management Partnership from its inception in 1997 to June 2002 and identify critical issues facing the parties (2003).

When Henry J. Kaiser and Dr. Sidney Garfield created a health plan for Kaiser’s shipyard and construction workers in the 1930s and ’40s, they laid the foundation for Kaiser Permanente.

From an initial customer base consisting almost entirely of union members, Kaiser Permanente grew to be the largest nonprofit health plan in the country, serving a wide range of members. Today, the Labor Management Partnership, an innovative relationship among Kaiser Permanente managers, workers and physicians, is the largest and most comprehensive partnership of its kind.

The Labor Management Partnership started in 1997, emerging from mounting strife between Kaiser Permanente and its unions that threatened to derail the organization. Instead of continuing a traditional approach and launching a campaign against KP that ultimately could damage the organization—and the workers it employed—the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions approached KP leaders with an idea for how to do things differently.

Today, the 1997 agreement continues as the guiding document between KP and the Coalition unions. In 2018, after the Alliance of Health Care Unions formed, a new 2018 Labor Management Partnership Agreement was reached between KP and the Alliance unions. Under these partnership agreements, the parties agree to work collaboratively to improve the quality of care for Kaiser Permanente's members and communities and help KP lead the market in health care — while providing job security and the best place to work for its employees.

Working in collaboration

On a day-to-day basis, partnership means that workers, managers and physicians share decision making and problem solving by staying grounded in their common interests. Employees, managers and physicians work in unit-based teams — collaborative work groups that, in the course of their ongoing work, improve quality and service and make KP more affordable. Partnership is credited not only with improving patient care and satisfaction, but in making Kaiser Permanente a better place to work by giving employees a voice on the job. 

Over the years, the parties have worked together on such policy issues as nurse-to-patient staffing ratios and health care reform and ratified groundbreaking accords such as the Employment and Income Security Agreement. Perhaps the most ambitious endeavor was the 2005 launch of 3,500 unit-based teams that work on improving care, service and affordability every day. Together, Kaiser Permanente and the unions have bargained a series of groundbreaking National Agreements, including the ones in force today with the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions and the Alliance of Health Care Unions. All used an interest-based approach.

Each day, every day, Kaiser Permanente’s 3,500 unit-based teams are providing ever-better patient care and advancing our mission. Now, under the 2015 National Agreement, UBTs will have an even greater role to play—and higher expectations to meet.

The new contract, which took effect Oct. 1, 2015, calls for UBTs to bring the voice of KP members and patients into their work. Teams also will be making total health and safety a greater part of their activities. And they will undergo more rigorous, face-to-face performance assessments.

To help them meet the new expectations, there’s a cadre of expert peer advisors and coaches they can call on—unit-based team consultants and union partnership representatives (UPRs) trained in performance improvement methods. Both UBT consultants and UPRs support unit-based teams, but UPRs, who are coalition union-represented employees, also specifically mentor and support labor in UBT and performance improvement work. Both help teams sharpen their communication, data collection and analysis, and other skills needed to advance on the Path to Performance.

It’s a unique system to support workplace learning and innovation.

“I’ve learned a lot about how to build teams and how to use performance improvement tools,” says Gage Martin, an SEIU-UHW member and union partnership representative at the Santa Rosa Medical Center in Northern California. “I take that learning and help teams do projects in all areas of our Value Compass. It’s a great job.”

The UBT consultant and UPR roles were created, as a test of change, in 2008. Since then, they have helped KP set the standard for quality, service and the workplace experience, and delivered tens of millions of dollars in cost savings.

As we strive to deliver the promise of One KP—providing each member and patient with the best care experience, every time—we also need to have One LMP, with each person working in partnership, having the same resources available to them and the same accountability to upholding the National Agreement. UBT consultants and UPRs help make that happen.