USW Local 7600 Set to Strike if Contract Demands Are Not Met

Members of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 7600 at Kaiser Permanente have scheduled a strike authorization vote to be held October 2 to 10. Negotiations continue over a new labor agreement that will enable workers to continue providing high-quality care for the Inland Empire community.

“With demands that would negatively impact worker safety and patient care, it’s clear that management is more concerned with pursuing its own agenda than it is about workers and patients,” said Michael Barnett, Local 7600 president. “We urge Kaiser Permanente to come to the table and bargain with us for a fair contract rather than force workers into a labor dispute by insisting on dangerous cost-cutting measures that would make it impossible to maintain safe staffing levels.”

Roughly 7,400 healthcare workers in USW Local 7600, in conjunction with the 20 other local unions who make up the Alliance of Health Care Unions, have been bargaining with Kaiser Permanente since this past spring. Both the national and local agreements expire Sept. 30.

Kaiser Permanente’s demands include a two-tiered wage scale that would pay new hires significantly less for doing the same jobs as current workers, making it even more difficult to fill empty positions, says the union.