How Kaiser Permanente Strike is Impacting the Bay Area

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 5 October 2023

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

More than 75,000 Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers in five states —including 22,000 in the Bay Area — went on strike Wednesday after the company and unions failed to resolve a dispute over wages and staffing levels. The union says the strike, set to last three days, is the largest in the healthcare sector in U.S. history. We’ll look at how the walkout is affecting patient care and how it fits into the recent trend of labor actions targeting a range of industries across the country. Guests: Jeannifer Key, licensed clinical social worker at Kaiser Oakland; member, SEIU-UHW Ken Jacobs, chair, Center for Labor Research and Education at UC Berkeley Farida Jhabvala Romero, reporter, KQED Dr. Robert Pearl, former CEO, The Permanente Medical Group; author, "Uncaring: How the Culture of Medicine Kills Doctors and Patients" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:15.6	Support for Forum comes from Broadway SF, presenting Parade, the musical revival based on a true story.
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0:29.6	a newlywed Jewish couple struggling to make a life in Georgia. When Leo is accused of an
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0:56.6	From KQED.
1:09.5	From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
1:13.6	More than 75,000 Kaiser Permanente health care workers in five states, including 22,000 in the Bay Area, went on strike Wednesday, after the company and unions failed to resolve a dispute over wages and staffing levels.
1:29.6	The union sets the strike planned to last three days is the largest health care strike in
1:35.3	U.S. history. We'll look at how the walkout is affecting patient care and how it fits into the
1:40.8	recent trend of major labor actions across a range of American industries.
1:46.8	That's all coming up next after this news.
1:49.0	Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. It was a quote, hot labor summer in California,
2:08.6	according to the people who make the memes and even the New York Times. But with tens of thousands
2:13.6	of Kaiser employees on strike this week, the organizing heat has clearly extended fully into the fall.
2:20.5	This morning, we take an hour to bring you the latest from the picket lines and the context
2:24.6	you need to understand what this massive healthcare labor dispute is really about.
2:30.9	Join first by KQED reporter Farita Jovala Romero. Welcome to the show. Hi, Alexis. Good
2:37.4	morning. So Farida, you are out on the picket lines yesterday and you picked up some audio. Let's hear
2:42.8	from a few Kaiser employees here. We have employees sleeping in their cars because they cannot afford to cost a living.
	...

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