Pending Union Strikes

[SlugSlinger]

Here's a big one for healthcare, mainly in CA, if you could imagine that.

Kaiser Permanente strike looms in San Francisco Bay Area

Kaiser Permanente in Mission Bay in San Francisco. Photo: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

A group of 2,500 Bay Area Kaiser Permanente health care workers voted this week voted to authorize a strike amid ongoing concerns about short staffing and unfair labor practices.

Driving the news: The workers, part of OPEIU Local 29, are prepared to strike if the coalition of unions they belong to can't reach a contract agreement by the end of this month.

The vote, which was announced Wednesday, comes amid a string of other votes by nearly 70,000 union members in Colorado, California, Oregon, Washington, Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.
Why it matters: Union leaders say this would be the largest strike of health care workers in U.S. history and would impact Kaiser medical facilities throughout the country.

What's happening: The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions has criticized the health care giant for chronic understaffing that's led to long waits for appointments and delays in patient care services.

Union leaders are fighting for higher annual pay raises, arguing their wages have not kept up with the rising cost of living and inflation.
Arlene Peasnall, a Kaiser Permanente executive, told Axios via email that the company is offering "across-the-board wage increases" and is continuing to offer "excellent health benefits"and retirement plans.
What they're saying: "Over the last few years, the staffing crisis has made it so that our patients can't get the adequate care that they need, or there's a delay in getting them treatment just because there's not enough staff to handle them," Christie Dubeck, a Bay Area-based pharmacy technician, told Axios.

Dubeck, who has worked at Kaiser for over three decades, said no one wants a strike to happen "but we need the organization to stand behind us and give us what we need to do the job appropriately."
State of play: Management proposed cumulative wage increases of between 10% and 14% over the multi-year contract, and a $21 minimum wage across Kaiser facilities.

The coalition's proposal includes cumulative annual pay raises of around 26% in the four-year contract and a $25 per hour minimum wage.
The unions see higher pay as part of the solution to the staffing crisis by helping with retention and hiring.

Kaiser Permanente has a number of locations in the Bay Area, including hospitals in San Francisco, Oakland, Alameda, and San Mateo.
The other side: Kaiser leaders are "confident" they'll reach an agreement before the current contract expires, Peasnall said.

The strike authorizations were a "disappointing action considering their progress at the bargaining table," they said.
They urged employees not to strike, but said they have a plan to ensure patients' access to health care services if it happens this year.

 

[SlugSlinger]

And a big one for auto manufacturing.

Striking auto workers target 38 new GM and Stellantis plants as strike enters second week

Associated Press Sep 22, 2023, 9:59 AM CDT

The United Auto Workers union expanded its strike on Friday, as the stoppage entered a second week.
Negotiations had progressed at Ford, the UAW said, so the automaker was spared from new strikes.
Striking workers are asking for pay raises and calling attention to how much their CEOs make.

The president of the United Auto Workers said Friday the union will expand its strike against major automakers by walking out of 38 General Motors and Stellantis plants in 20 states.

Ford was spared additional strikes because the company has met some of the union's demands during negotiations over the past week, said UAW President Shawn Fain.

The union is pointing to the companies' huge recent profits as it seeks wage increases of 36% over four years. The companies have offered a little over half that amount. The UAW has other demands, including a 32-hour work week for 40 hours of pay and a restoration of traditional pension plans for newer workers.

The companies say they can't afford to meet the union's demands because they need to invest profits in a costly transition from gas-powered cars to electric vehicles.

The UAW's contract with the automakers expired at midnight on Sept. 14, and workers walked out of a Ford assembly plant near Detroit, a GM factory in Wentzville, Missouri, and a Jeep plant run by Stellantis in Toledo, Ohio. The initial strike has involved about 13,000 of the union's 146,000 members.

Fain said earlier this week he would call on workers at more plants to strike unless there was significant progress in contract negotiations with the carmakers. Bargaining continued Thursday, although neither side reported any breakthroughs, and they remained far apart on wage increases.

The strike until Friday had involved fewer than 13,000 of the union's 146,000 members. The companies have laid off a few thousand more, saying some factories are running short on parts because of the strike.

Still, the impact is not yet being felt on car lots around the country – it will probably take a few weeks before the strike causes a significant shortage of new vehicles, according to analysts. Prices could rise even sooner, however, if the prospect of a prolonged strike triggers panic buying.

The union is seeking pay raises of 36% over four years, an end to lower pay scales for new workers, and most boldly, a 32-hour work week for 40 hours of pay. The car companies say they can't afford the union's demands despite huge profits because they need to invest in the transformation to electric vehicles.

One week ago, workers went on strike a week ago at three assembly plants — a Ford factory near Detroit, a GM plant outside St. Louis, and a Jeep plant owned by Stellantis in Toledo, Ohio.

The Detroit News reported Thursday that a spokesman for Fain wrote on a private group chat on X, formerly Twitter, that union negotiators aimed to inflict "recurring reputations damage and operational chaos" on the carmakers, and "if we can keep them wounded for months they don't know what to do."

Ford and GM seized on the messages as a sign of bad faith by the UAW.

"It's now clear that the UAW leadership has always intended to cause months-long disruption, regardless of the harm it causes to its members and their communities," GM said in a statement.

Ford spokesman Mark Truby called the messages "disappointing, to say the least, given what is at stake for our employees, the companies and this region."

The UAW spokesman, Jonah Furman, did not confirm writing the messages, which were linked to the same picture as his X account, and called them "private messages" that "you shouldn't have," the newspaper reported.

 

[okcBob]

Here's a big one for healthcare, mainly in CA, if you could imagine that.

Kaiser Permanente strike looms in San Francisco Bay Area

Kaiser Permanente in Mission Bay in San Francisco. Photo: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

A group of 2,500 Bay Area Kaiser Permanente health care workers voted this week voted to authorize a strike amid ongoing concerns about short staffing and unfair labor practices.

Driving the news: The workers, part of OPEIU Local 29, are prepared to strike if the coalition of unions they belong to can't reach a contract agreement by the end of this month.

The vote, which was announced Wednesday, comes amid a string of other votes by nearly 70,000 union members in Colorado, California, Oregon, Washington, Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.
Why it matters: Union leaders say this would be the largest strike of health care workers in U.S. history and would impact Kaiser medical facilities throughout the country.

What's happening: The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions has criticized the health care giant for chronic understaffing that's led to long waits for appointments and delays in patient care services.

Union leaders are fighting for higher annual pay raises, arguing their wages have not kept up with the rising cost of living and inflation.
Arlene Peasnall, a Kaiser Permanente executive, told Axios via email that the company is offering "across-the-board wage increases" and is continuing to offer "excellent health benefits"and retirement plans.
What they're saying: "Over the last few years, the staffing crisis has made it so that our patients can't get the adequate care that they need, or there's a delay in getting them treatment just because there's not enough staff to handle them," Christie Dubeck, a Bay Area-based pharmacy technician, told Axios.

Dubeck, who has worked at Kaiser for over three decades, said no one wants a strike to happen "but we need the organization to stand behind us and give us what we need to do the job appropriately."
State of play: Management proposed cumulative wage increases of between 10% and 14% over the multi-year contract, and a $21 minimum wage across Kaiser facilities.

The coalition's proposal includes cumulative annual pay raises of around 26% in the four-year contract and a $25 per hour minimum wage.
The unions see higher pay as part of the solution to the staffing crisis by helping with retention and hiring.

Kaiser Permanente has a number of locations in the Bay Area, including hospitals in San Francisco, Oakland, Alameda, and San Mateo.
The other side: Kaiser leaders are "confident" they'll reach an agreement before the current contract expires, Peasnall said.

The strike authorizations were a "disappointing action considering their progress at the bargaining table," they said.
They urged employees not to strike, but said they have a plan to ensure patients' access to health care services if it happens this year.

Looks like a big $$$ payday for the travel nurses. Big hospital in NY on strike was paying over 6K/week back in August. Local staffing here might drop too if the strike is a long one.

 

[SlugSlinger]

How about some lame movie writers:

WGA and studios hold marathon talks but no deal yet to end strike

SEPT. 21, 2023 UPDATED 10:05 PM PT

The Writers Guild of America and major studios held a marathon bargaining session Thursday, with a meeting that stretched into the evening in a sign of progress toward a deal that would end the strike that has dragged on for more than 140 days.

In a note to guild members Thursday night, members of the WGA negotiating committee said talks with the studios would resume Friday.

“Your Negotiating Committee appreciates all the messages of solidarity and support we have received the last few days, and ask as many of you as possible to come out to the picket lines tomorrow,” the committee said.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which handles labor negotiations for the studios, did not comment.

It was the second time the writers’ representatives met with studio heads this week. After weeks of little headway amid the crippling strike, the two sides met Wednesday for the first time since an Aug. 22 meeting that representatives for the writers described as a “lecture” and a browbeating session.

The last two meetings included top executives from some of the major media companies represented by the AMPTP.

NBCUniversal Studio Group Chairman Donna Langley, Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos and Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav have gotten directly involved in the meetings, a signal of the increasing pressure on the industry to get a deal done that would return thousands of entertainment industry employees to work. Thursday’s session began at around 9:30 a.m. and ended at about 7:30 p.m.

Both sides continued meeting because they didn’t want to lose momentum, according to a person familiar with the matter who declined to be named.

People close to the negotiations described the tone of Wednesday’s bargaining as positive, but that reports of the two sides being close to a deal were off base. The WGA was expected to respond Thursday to proposals that the studio group had put forth.

Sources said the studio chiefs and the WGA negotiators are motivated to do a deal. If the strike drags on much longer, studios’ TV and film schedules will be further disrupted, resulting in additional financial pain for the companies. Workers, including below-the-line crew, are suffering from months of going without a paycheck.

Many of the studios are eager to get an agreement hammered out by early October to salvage their 2024 film slates, which would require them to be back in production soon. They’re also hoping to salvage what they can from the 2023-24 television season. In the absence of new scripted original shows, the TV networks have filled out their fall schedules with reality series, sports and reruns.

WGA members have been on strike since May 2, with their work stoppage approaching a record length for the guild. Film and television actors represented by SAG-AFTRA walked out in mid-July, resulting in a dual strike that essentially halted scripted production and hobbled studios’ ability to promote theatrical films. Studios have already delayed some of their 2023 movies because actors aren’t able to do publicity.

The WGA and the studios had returned to bargaining before in August, but the Aug. 22 session between guild negotiators and top executives cast a pall over the industry. After that meeting went badly, the AMPTP publicly released a summary of its Aug. 11 proposal, which angered writers who saw the movie as a tactic to go around the guild’s negotiating committee.

In subsequent weeks, each side insisted it was the other’s turn to offer a counterproposal. In one memo, the guild suggested that individual studios might be willing to splinter off and do their own deals with the writers. The AMPTP, in a statement, called this notion “false.”

Last week, the studio alliance said the WGA had reached out to restart negotiations, signaling a possible thaw was underway. WGA’s negotiating committee co-chair Chris Keyser spoke individually with some studio executives to convey the guild’s readiness to negotiate, according to two people familiar with the situation who were not authorized to comment. The CEOs met among themselves Tuesday to set the parameters for what a deal could look like from their perspective, one source said.

As talks restarted this week, large gaps remained between the two sides. Writers are seeking minimum staffing requirements in writers rooms, protections against artificial intelligence and more transparency from streamers on viewership so they can receive more financial rewards when programs are successful.


Many writers have expressed concerns that the fewer number of episodes on seasons on streaming series has made it more difficult to earn a living in Southern California and have been seeking pay increases and more stability.

The WGA, in its original proposal, had sought a minimum of six writers per writers room. The AMPTP, in an Aug. 11 proposal, offered to let showrunners on high-budget streaming and TV series hire at least two writers for at least 20 weeks of employment. It further proposed guaranteeing writers a minimum of 10 weeks of employment in development rooms.

In a summary of its Aug. 11 proposal, the AMPTP said it offered the largest pay bump for the WGA in 35 years, with wages increasing 5% in Year One of the proposed contract, followed by gains of 4% and 3.5% in subsequent years. The WGA had sought a 6% increase to minimums and residual bases in the first year, followed by 5% increases in the second and third years.


The two sides also remain apart on the issue of viewership data and a payment system based on the success of streaming shows. The AMPTP offered that the WGA could study confidential quarterly reports that show total minutes viewed of high-budget films and series and the programs’ total running time.

But the WGA’s negotiating committee said that such data would be accessible only to six guild staff members under the AMPTP’s proposal. “No writer can be told by the WGA about how well their project is doing, much less receive a residual based on that data,” the WGA’s negotiating committee wrote in an Aug. 24 note to the union’s members.

“The counteroffer is neither nothing, nor nearly enough,” the negotiating committee said in its memo at the time.

 

[OKRuss]

Looks like a big $$$ payday for the travel nurses. Big hospital in NY on strike was paying over 6K/week back in August. Local staffing here might drop too if the strike is a long one.

Yep. Wife made some good $$ 2 years ago on contracts here in Okc. Sometimes triple pay for extra shifts. She's wound care certified, RN with her BSN so that helped! Her niece has ER experience so I suggested they do a short term travel gig together.