Update on National Labor Summit

The following message from Chuck Columbus, Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, was sent to all employees on Wednesday, May 9, 2018:

We invited the leadership of every union representing Kaiser Permanente employees to attend a national labor summit this past Monday (and all but one accepted).

Our current Labor Management Partnership (LMP) has delivered more than 20 years of productive collaboration and significant results, thanks to the incredible work and innovation of employees, managers and physicians working together. Unfortunately, due to recent events, the current partnership cannot continue as it is. To rebuild a successful partnership, we must address the details included in:

• The Foundational Labor Management Partnership Agreement
• The National Agreement
• Local agreements with each union

The Path Forward

Our vision for a new labor management partnership is to have a stable, trust-based relationship with unions who share a basic set of core beliefs. We believe that the best way to move forward is to create an improved partnership agreement. At the labor summit, we invited every union to join in this new partnership with Kaiser Permanente, and provided a draft partnership agreement that spells out these core beliefs.

We asked union leadership to review our proposed improvements to the partnership agreement and provide feedback. The next step is to work in partnership with labor to have a final version of a new partnership agreement in the coming weeks.

2018 Bargaining

We are committed to fulfilling our obligations to bargaining as set forth in the National Agreement. To that end, we will focus on bargaining with those unions whose local contracts expire in 2018 or who are entitled to wage re-openers (according to the provisions of the 2015 National Agreement), and bargain with other unions as their contracts expire. Kaiser Permanente is committed to maintaining key provisions of existing agreements that benefit our employees, as we bargain new contracts.

Our overarching goal is to work with each of the unions that represent Kaiser Permanente employees so that we can continue to deliver on our mission of providing high-quality, affordable care and to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve. And, we believe that together we will create a new, stronger and more inclusive labor management partnership based on trust, mutual respect and cooperation that benefits our patients, members, customers and employees.