Tens and thousands of Northern California Kaiser Permanente employees on Thursday are holding a 24-hour sympathy strike in solidarity with co-workers currently in the midst of a months-long labor dispute.
Approximately 40,000 Kaiser workers across Northern California will hold the work stoppage to help Local 39 Operating Engineers who have been on strike the last two months over "unfair labor practices" and are "experiencing the same disrespect and lack of recognition that all Kaiser healthcare workers are feeling," the union said, They added that Kaiser is demanding the engineers take “the lowest raises in decades.”
The sympathy strike is scheduled to take place from 7 a.m. on Thursday to 7 a.m. on Friday.
"We cannot allow Kaiser to continue to engage in this anti-worker bullying or else we will face the same when we go back to negotiations in less than two years," Kaiser Union Board Members wrote in a letter to their co-workers.
Meanwhile, Kaiser officials criticized the decision to sympathy strike, calling it "not appropriate in this case."
"This will not bring us closer to an agreement and most important, it is unfair to our members and patients to disrupt their care when they most need our employees to be there for them," the health care company said in a statement.
The company also claimed some of the labor groups’ right to strike was not protected by law in their contracts, which the union refuted.
Officials said they have been bargaining "in good faith" with Local 39 Operating Engineers "for several months." They added they are "optimistic" the two sides will be able to reach an agreement.
Cathy Kennedy, a registered nurse at Kaiser Permanente in Roseville and president of the California Nurses Association, said last week that workers understand the impact of short staffing, however she argued the sympathy strike was "important" and will hopefully provide "meaningful change for working people, and for safe patient care conditions."
The sympathy strike comes less than a week after 50,000 Kaiser health care employees avoided a massive strike by agreeing to terms on a tentative labor contract.
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