Bargaining continues during 16th session

This message was sent on behalf of Lionel Sims, interim senior vice president, Human Resources, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals; and Priya Smith, chief employee human resources officer, The Permanente Medical Group; to Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California mental health and addiction medicine professionals on Thursday, October 16.

To our mental health and addiction medicine professionals,

On Wednesday, October 15, Kaiser Permanente and the National Union of Healthcare Workers met for the 16th time to continue working toward a new agreement for our Northern California mental health and addiction medicine professionals.

We remain committed to negotiating a fair and comprehensive agreement that reflects your vital contributions to caring for our members and patients. 

Continued exchange of proposals

We presented 3 counterproposals to the NUHW bargaining team:

• Posting and Filling Positions (Article 10): We heard NUHW’s feedback with the existing timeframe of 60 days for the release of successful bidders to their new jobs and proposed that be changed to 45 days.

• Professional Practice Committee (Article 31): We made minor language changes and added a reference to Local Professional Practice Committees (Appendix E), which was agreed to last week.

• Model of Care and Patient Access: Our original contract proposal allowed for 3 months of pay and health and welfare benefits, regardless of tenure, in the event of a reduction in force. We are increasing that proposal benefit to 4 months after 20 years of service.

NUHW also presented 3 counterproposals: Professional Hours (Article 15), Paid Time Off (Article 23), and Job Duties and Workload Distribution (Article 28). These proposals are under consideration.

Additional bargaining sessions on the horizon

We proposed an additional bargaining date: Wednesday, November 19. We’re open to discussing other options as well.

Our next bargaining sessions are Monday, October 27, and Thursday, October 30.

Thank you for the very important work you do to take care of our members and patients.

For more information, visit kp.org/nuhwbargaining.