
After a historic strike, healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions announced Friday that they reached a tentative 4-year union contract agreement in the early hours of this morning.
The deal gives frontline healthcare workers the resources to do the job they love and keep patients safe, said Yvonne Esquivel, a pediatric medical assistant at Kaiser Permanente in Gilroy, California, in a statement issued by the coalition.
The tentative agreement includes raising all wages by 21% over four years to increase worker retention, including establishing a new minimum wage of $25/hour in California — in line with recently passed California legislation that phases in a $25 minimum wage for healthcare workers over the next several years — and $23/hour for other states over the next three years. The contract also includes better opportunities for workers to make money through Kaiser’s Performance Sharing Plan, stipulations around subcontracting and outsourcing labor, and several initiatives around hiring and skill development.