Tentative agreement reached between Kaiser Permanente and UNITE HERE Local 5

HONOLULU—A tentative agreement between Kaiser Permanente and Hawaii union UNITE HERE Local 5 was reached today. The union represents nearly 1,800 health care workers employed by Kaiser Permanente at 21 facilities on Oahu, Maui, and Hawaii Island.

The new 3-year contract reached between Local 5 and Kaiser includes stronger subcontracting language as well as the creation of a labor/management committee that will seek to resolve problems within departments and maintain current health care benefits and free retiree medical.

“We began this campaign 16 months ago and it was tough and scary at times, but what made it work was our comprehensive campaign,” said Cindy Aban, a medical assistant at Kaiser’s Honolulu Clinic, in a statement. “We did things as a union that we thought we never could do. We never knew if our limited durations strikes, our public leafleting, or our fighting of issues related to asbestos and subcontracting was going to get this done. But we knew we could count on each other as a union and we knew we had the community and politicians fighting with us.”

Local 5 formally filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge on January 7 with the National Labor Relations Board against Kaiser Permanente for trying to implement the subcontracting of union work and bargaining in bad faith.

According to Local 5, in 2004, Kaiser promised the union that Mapunapuna Clinic housekeeping work would return to the union, however Kaiser kept the subcontractor and it led to three years of litigation—an arbitrator forced Kaiser to keep its promise. Also in 2009, Kaiser unilaterally installed subcontractor Pharmerica Corporation in the Moanalua SNF unit to do pharmacy tech work and ignored a 30-day notice of intent required by the union contract.

Throughout the year, Local 5 held walk-outs and rallies in protest of the subcontracting.

The new three-year agreement reached today will expire on June 30, 2012. Local 5 members will be voting to ratify the agreement through the end of this week.

The new 3-year contract reached between Local 5 and Kaiser includes stronger subcontracting language as well as the creation of a labor/management committee that will seek to resolve problems within departments and maintain current health care benefits and free retiree medical.

Joyce Griffin, a patient accounting representative said: “In the end we knew our community was fighting with us,our comprehensive campaign was all about fighting for good quality patient care our community deserves and this agreement just goes to show that working people in this community are not going to let ‘mainland’ companies continue to use the economy as an excuse to leave workers behind as they continue to prosper.”