News of the deal comes nearly a week after the largest-ever health care worker strike.
Unions representing more than 75,000 workers – including hundreds in Fresno – announced a tentative deal with Kaiser Permanente workers.
“The frontline healthcare workers of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions are excited to have reached a tentative agreement with Kaiser Permanente,” said on X, formally Twitter.
News of the deal with Kaiser Permanente comes nearly a week after the largest-ever health care worker strike. The three-day strike ended Oct. 7, and a second, larger strike had been in the works for next month if no new deal was struck.
The unions had been pushing for a $26 minimum wage within Kaiser to combat staffing issues and contend with the rising cost of living nationwide.
The unions had been pushing for a $26 minimum wage within Kaiser to combat staffing issues and contend with the rising cost of living across the country.
In a news release Friday morning, unions said the new contract includes a new minimum wage for health care workers – $25 per hour in California and $23 per hour on other states. The unions had been pushing for $26 per hour.
The contract also addresses “the staffing crisis” by raising wages 21% over four years, which the unions said would help with worker retention. The unions also said the new contract includes a “wide variety of initiatives to invest in the workforce and address the staffing crisis.”
Roughly 60,000 of the workers who voted in favor of striking are based at facilities in California, where Kaiser is the largest private employer in the state, according to Kaiser Permanente’s site.
Outside Kaiser’s Fresno Medical Center on day one of the strike, workers told Fresnoland the staffing crisis creates “unsafe” situations for patients, whether they’re waiting over thirty minutes for a staff member to help them use the bathroom or months for a cancer diagnosis.
Facilities remained open during the Kaiser worker strike last week, with hospitals relying on physicians and nurses who continued working through the stoppage and, in some cases, turning to temporary contract workers.
