Coalition bargaining: Working together for you

This message was sent to employees represented by the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions.

This week we kick off negotiations with the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions to reach a new collective bargaining agreement. As the process begins, we are motivated by our gratitude and respect for you and the work you do every day in service to our patients and members.

The past few years have been challenging for everyone in health care including the people of Kaiser Permanente. In addition to the fatigue so many of us face after a 3-year pandemic, we are continuing to overcome higher care volumes and the effects of a nationwide labor shortage in health care, which has created significant staffing issues in many areas. At the same time, economic conditions have resulted in higher prices for goods and services for you, our members, and our organization. These forces combined have created an extremely challenging business environment resulting in Kaiser Permanente losing over $1.3B in operating margin in 2022.

The best solutions will come from working together

Of course, we are aggressively recruiting to hire more staff, and things are starting to improve. Our coming negotiations bring us an opportunity to think creatively as we address the issues we face and together arrive at innovative solutions that will allow our employees, members, and Kaiser Permanente to thrive.

We look forward to coming together with our Coalition partners and rolling up our sleeves to find new ways to tackle these challenges. Our commitment to you is that we will achieve an agreement that:

• Addresses our current challenges
• Helps ensure the high-quality care our members expect from Kaiser Permanente is affordable and easy to access
• Recognizes the contributions of our represented employees with excellent wages, benefits, and opportunities for career growth

Throughout bargaining, we will provide updates on kp.org/labor.

Our long, proud, and successful history of working with labor unions proves that we are better together. We come to these negotiations with an open mind, and we ask that you and all our partner unions do so, too. Let’s take advantage of the power of our labor-management partnership and show the world — again — that management and labor working together is the strongest way to achieve a fair and lasting agreement and advance Kaiser Permanente’s mission.

Thank you for all you do, in partnership with us, to bring our mission to life every day for our members, patients, communities, and each other.