Working People23 Dec 2023

After Waging the Largest Healthcare Worker Strike in US History, Kaiser Workers Win Big (w/ Meg Niemi & Audrey Cardenas)

From October 4-6 of this year, the US experienced the largest healthcare worker strike in our history, when over 75,000 workers with the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions went on a three-day strike against the healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente. Then, on October 13, after warning that more strikes could be coming if a deal wasn't reached at the bargaining table, healthcare workers scored a major victory and reached a tentative agreement with Kaiser, which the union membership, accounting for over 85,000 Kaiser Permanente workers across the country, voted to ratify in early November. As the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions stated in a press release upon the contract ratification, "In a historic victory for frontline healthcare workers, more than 85,000 Kaiser Permanente workers have overwhelmingly voted to ratify a new contract that will bolster patient safety, make critical investments in the healthcare workforce, and set a higher standard for the healthcare industry nationwide. Approved by a margin of 98.5%, the four-year contract is in effect from October 1, 2023, to September 30, 2027, at hundreds of Kaiser facilities across California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia." In this mini-cast, we speak with Meg Niemi, President of SEIU Local 49, and Audrey Cardenas, a benefits support specialist at a Kaiser dental office in Oregon, about how Kaiser healthcare workers took on the bosses and won this new contract, and what that is going to mean for workers and patients alike moving forward.

Additional links/info below…

SEIU Local 49 website, Facebook page, and Twitter/X page
SEIU United Healthcare Workers West website, Facebook page, and Twitter/X page
Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions website and Twitter/X page
Meg's Twitter/X page
SEIU-UHW Press Release: "More than 85,000 Kaiser Permanente Workers Ratify Landmark New Contract"
Michael Sainato, The Guardian, "Kaiser Permanente and Unions Reach Deal after Healthcare Workers' Strike"
Reuters, "Kaiser Healthcare Workers Ratify New Contract"
Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, "35,000 Kaiser Permanente Workers Are Set to Strike, and the Future of US Healthcare Is at Stake (from 2021)"

Permanent links below...

Working People Patreon page
Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page

Featured Music...

Jules Taylor, "Working People" Theme Song

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(405)

Want to save the world? Start by unionizing your workplace

"We are living in a pivotal moment in labor history," Cole Rockarts writes in their new book Fired Up About Unions. "At a time when corporations have more power, profit, and political influence than e...

30 Sep 53min

Toledo residents' lives upended by deadly Brent Industries explosions

On the morning of August 18, residents living near the Brent Industries facility in Toledo, Ohio, awoke to a series of massive explosions and a towering chemical fire in their backyards. Two Brent Ind...

23 Sep 57min

"Purge Palantir!": Union nurses warn Big Tech and Big Brother are invading our healthcare system

On August 27, registered nurses, patients, and community allies rallied and stopped traffic in cities around the US to demand that hospitals and elected officials cut all ties with artificial intellig...

16 Sep 43min

Why the stories working people tell ourselves about ourselves matter (Wheeling, WV Labor Symposium Speech)

Over the 2026 Labor Day weekend, Working People host and TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez spoke at the Reuther-Pollack Labor History Symposium in Wheeling, West Virginia, organized by the Whee...

9 Sep 32min

Can anyone "make it" in today's music industry?

The 20th-century days of vinyl records, tape decks, CDs, Tower Records, and MTV have given way to our 21st-century age of MP3s and music streaming, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, TikTok, and Ticketmaster. ...

2 Sep 56min

"Katrina 2.0": Residents of Gary, Indiana fight to survive without power for 12 days (and counting)

After a deadly "derecho" storm and flash floods slammed the midwest in early August, downing trees and power lines, tens of thousands of residents in and around Gary, Indiana have been surviving witho...

24 Aug 47min

No such thing as 'unskilled work': Barbara Ehrenreich's 'Nickel and Dimed' 25 years later

In her 2001 masterwork Nickel and Dimed, the late Barbara Ehrenreich went undercover to report on the daily realities working people in America face trying to get by on minimum-wage. After working as ...

19 Aug 46min

Layoffs, long waits, obscene prices: Vermont healthcare workers and patients face historic crisis

Frontline healthcare workers and the patients they serve are facing a major crisis at the University of Vermont Health network—the state's leading healthcare provider. "In June, UVM Health eliminated ...

13 Aug 27min