Unions Hold Sympathy Strikes to Support Kaiser Engineers
A strike at Northern California Kaiser Permanente facilities by members of Operating Engineers Local 39 is stretching into its third month as larger Kaiser unions have begun to hold one-day sympathy strikes.
At issue, according to e-mails sent to members of the local, are pay, staffing levels, and retirement contributions for the employees who maintain both bedside and building equipment in the hospitals and medical offices.
Nurses, members of the California Nurses Association (CNA), picketed outside the Kaiser Permanente San Leandro Medical Center on November 19, a day after a one-day sympathy strike by members of the Service Employees International Union, who represent mental health and other workers.
Local 39 members have been seeking to match wages paid in the local’s contracts with other hospitals as well as increased pension contributions and relief from what they see as understaffing. According to union officials, the pay being offered starts off slightly less than at other hospitals and would slip further behind in each year of the proposed three-year contract.
One Local 39 member [[who asked not to be named]] told this reporter that when the Hayward Kaiser Hospital was replaced with the considerably larger one in San Leandro a few years ago, the same number of engineers was expected to maintain equipment in the larger hospital.
“There may not be more patients,” he said, “but there are a lot more rooms and thus a lot more doors to keep working smoothly, never mind other equipment.”
Part of the added workload, he said, is due to special protective equipment in use during the pandemic, such as plastic shields, that must be kept in good repair.
Kaiser counters that the engineers are paid well, especially compared to other workers in its hospitals who are not doctors or nurses, and there is enough staff to get the necessary work done.
“As nurses, we’re right there at the bedside caring for patients. We rely on these engineers to keep the equipment working so we can do our jobs,” Michelle Oyarzo, CNA head nurse representative at the San Leandro hospital, said at the November 18 picket line.
Oyarzo, along with SEIU official Renee Saldana, both said that in previous strikes by each union, Local 39 members staged sympathy strikes.
“They’ve supported us, so we’ll support them,” Saldana said.
Kaiser insists that the quality of patient care has not been affected by the Local 39 strike or the sympathy strikes.