Progress gained at seventh and eighth bargaining sessions

Overview

Despite ongoing progress and active engagement during discussions at the 2 bargaining sessions this week (September 16 and 18), we were disappointed when the NUHW bargaining team walked away from the table yesterday without a conversation or explanation.

We made progress in prior bargaining sessions, and we made additional progress toward a new agreement this week. We don’t know why the union chose to walk away. We urge you to communicate to your union leaders the importance of engaging constructively with Kaiser Permanente to reach a new agreement.

Bargaining session 7

On Monday September 16, we reached a tentative agreement on Non-Discrimination. Additionally, Kaiser Permanente presented a counterproposal that offered to continue using the current contract language in the areas of:

• Union Staff Representatives and Shop Stewards
• Subcontracting
• Job Postings
• Transfer Policies
• Workload Distribution
• Grievance and Arbitration Procedure and Disputes-Work Stoppage.

While Kaiser Permanente rejected NUHW’s Staffing Committee Proposal, we offered counterproposals on Status Definitions and Regional Professional Practice Committee. Lastly, in the Monday session, NUHW offered revised contract proposals in the areas of:

• Preceptors
• Requests for Temporary Reductions/Alternate Schedule/Job Sharing
• Patient Management Time (Administrative and Planning Time)

Bargaining session 8

On Wednesday, September 18, we reached a tentative agreement on Leaves of Absence.

There was also discussion about Administrative and Planning Time. Kaiser Permanente believes you, our mental health professionals, should have the necessary time for planning — both for patient care and other administrative accountabilities. The union has failed on several occasions to explain how their proposal for Administrative and Planning Time could be operationalized. To eliminate this barrier to progress, Kaiser Permanente presented a new proposal to create a subcommittee to further discuss this topic to yield additional details and context regarding NUHW’s counterproposal provided earlier this week. NUHW rejected the idea of having a small subgroup work to find common ground offline and report recommendations back to the bargaining table, stating that such a discussion would have to occur in the presence of the entire union and management bargaining teams. Kaiser Permanente is evaluating the union’s verbal counterproposal.

Kaiser Permanente renewed its request for a written counterproposal from NUHW in response to its Across-the-Board Annual Wage Increase proposal provided on September 4. The union said it would respond after receiving a full counterproposal to their Article 15, Compensation Proposal (which includes Tenure Step Progression, Longevity, Licensure Promotion, Advanced Hire Criteria, and Beeper Pay, in addition to an Across-the-Board Annual Wage Increase proposal).

Additional Kaiser Permanente counterproposals included:

• Incentives
• Flexible Schedules
• Professional Hours

Additional NUHW counterproposals included:

• Regional Professional Practice Committee
• Preceptors
• Technology
• Associates

Although the union left bargaining early and unannounced, Kaiser Permanente delivered our remaining proposals through email. These proposals included an Incentive Plan and many of our responses to NUHW’s economic proposals, including a reply to the union’s Compensation proposal.

We are committed to working with NUHW to reach an agreement that supports you, our mental health professionals, in sustaining the delivery of the best clinical care for all our members and patients. Such an agreement also would build on the highly competitive wages, benefits, and environment that maintain our position as a great place to work and to receive mental health and addiction medicine care. We are committed to reaching a new contract with NUHW without interruptions to patient care.