US Kaiser Permanente workers vote overwhelmingly in favor of strike

In a vote on Monday, more than 98 percent of Kaiser Permanente workers represented by SEIU United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) voted in favor of strike action against the health care behemoth. The vote is a powerful expression of opposition to decades of attacks on workers by the multi-trillion dollar US health care industry.

More than 37,000 employees voted in favor of a strike, more than two-thirds of the overall SEIU-UHW membership. The remainder of the group, the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente unions, will vote between now and early September, raising the possibility of a strike by more than 80,000 workers throughout the states of California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Issues that motivated the strike vote were the ensuring of adequate and safe staffing levels, protection of jobs and benefits, including the maintenance of a defined pension benefit, and opposition to the practice of hiring unlicensed and unaccredited staff members.

Kaiser Permanente, a supposed non-profit, is the largest managed health organization in the United States with more than 12 million members, posting more than $5 billion in net income during the first two quarters of 2019 alone, more than its net income in the entirety of 2018.

Read more: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/08/16/kais-a16.html