Negotiations begin for new national agreement
Leaders of Kaiser Permanente, the Permanente Medical Groups, and more than 170 union members from the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions met this week in Oakland for their first three-day national bargaining session. After a half-day of orientation and another half-day of training in the interest-based bargaining process, the group broke into four sub-groups to begin tackling specific issues.
The negotiations are conducted by a 111-member Common Issues Committee (CIC). The CIC is composed of 68 union members and 43 KP leaders. In addition, local unions brought more than 100 frontline observers to the meetings.
Interest-Based Bargaining
As in 2000 and 2005, the parties are using an interest-based negotiating model. This is a collaborative approach to solving problems that strives to craft solutions that meet the interests of all parties. It also aims to preserve and improve workplace relationships and our Partnership. Instead of winning or losing, it’s about clarifying interests, generating options, and finding solutions that work for both sides.
The interest-based process begins not with positions or demands, but by clarifying issues. While the process requires a greater initial investment of time and training, the results achieved in the past two rounds of National Bargaining (in 2000 and 2005) show it is worth the investment.
Bargaining Context
To help the CIC understand the context of these negotiations, the bargaining sessions opened with Kaiser Permanente and the Union Coalition providing information about the state of the US health care marketplace, Kaiser Permanente, and our Labor Management Partnership.
John August, executive director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, provided a framework using broad themes to define interests in Bargaining 2010, from the passage of health care reform to the demand for high-quality, affordable health care.
“Partnership is an opportunity to navigate through a difficult time and to strengthen the great mission-driven social asset we call Kaiser Permanente,” said August. “The only way to preserve the mission of KP, and mission of the Unions, is for workers to have a voice on the job and best-in-class wages, hours and working conditions.”
He added that union workers have brought, and must continue to bring to the job, the commitment, innovation and performance improvements needed for a strategy for success. “We need to build this partnership to succeed in the future, no matter what the obstacles or challenges.”
Kaiser Permanente leaders affirmed their commitment to Labor Management Partnership and the frontline workers who carry out the organization’s mission.
And they praised strides that have been made in improving the quality, service and affordability of care, due in great part to the unit-based teams being formed across KP.
“It is an incredible strength and testimony that we sit here today with 86,000 employees working in or represented by UBTs, driving the agenda of service, quality and affordability—and we’ve only scratched the surface,” said Bernard Tyson, executive vice president, Health Plan and Hospital Operations. “One of the best assets we have are our people–and we’re not bashful about that. We are committed to the people who carry out our mission.”
KP Chief Financial Officer Kathy Lancaster outlined the achievements, challenges, and opportunities KP faces in the coming years: the thousands of improvements made by unit-based teams, the incredible efforts across Kaiser Permanente that resulted in bringing annual cost increases down to only 4.4% in 2009, and the achievement of operating margins sufficient to fund capital investments, technology, and long-term liabilities including rebuilding pension funds.
The challenge: to sustain these achievements over time, while the economy continues to teeter, along with the job market, and the stock market (which is a source of income for capital investments as well as pension funds). Kaiser Permanente leaders described the unprecedented changes continuing to take place in the health care marketplace and the broader economy, including the significant economic challenges posed by the recession: millions of job losses, membership losses, and a potentially slow or even jobless recovery.
SEIU-UHW Trustee Dave Regan called on leaders to seize the opportunity posed by health care reform. “Health care reform is really a singular event. In our lifetimes nothing like this will ever be replicated. There are 32 million people who are about to get health care.”
“We have an extraordinary opportunity – we have all the pieces we need to grow,” said Arthur Southam, executive vice president, Health Plan Operations.
As Dr. Jeffrey Weisz, executive medical director, Southern California Permanente Medical Group, stated, “We have a chance to show America how it is done…and we need to work together to drive performance to the next level.”
Issues
The CIC broke into four subgroups to address the following four issues: attendance and healthy workforce; developing the labor management partnership; performance improvement and performance sharing programs; and workforce planning and development. Economics will handled by the CIC as a full group, after the other four issues are addressed. The objectives of each subgroup are:
- Attendance—To develop specific recommendations on programs, processes and strategies which will result in significantly improved absenteeism rates and improve the health of the workforce.
- Labor Management Partnership—To develop specific recommendations on what Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions should focus on, as partners, over the next several years.
- Performance Improvement/Performance Sharing Program (PSP)—How might we achieve and sustain superior organization performance, and how we can strengthen the connection between performance and reward at the unit/department level?
- Workforce Planning and Development—To develop specific recommendations on how we can develop an effective needs assessment process and ensure adequate funding to deliver on our workforce planning and development goals.
The subgroups began the work of identifying union, management, and joint issues in their area. Once that work is complete, they will examine data and generate options to address interests. By the conclusion of the third session of national bargaining on May 6, each subgroup will report a joint recommendation to the entire CIC on how the next national agreement will address their topic.
The final bargaining session, May 25-27, will be dedicated to finalizing these recommendations and completing the economic issues, to conclude the tentative National Agreement and agree on the scope of local bargaining. The tentative agreement will then be reviewed in June, and approved or rejected by the Union Delegates Conference, the Kaiser Permanente Partnership Group and the KP Board of Directors. After this, local bargaining will begin. After local bargaining is concluded, union members will vote to accept or reject the national and local tentative agreements as one package.