This is intercepted.

I'm Nalcika Renner, Washington Editor for the Intercept.

We get that! Let's get the light up! We won't let them set out on a future because you deserve better. Your patience.

Last week, more than 30,000 healthcare workers working for Kaiser Permanente provided a 10-day notice to the company that on November 15th they would go on strike.

More than 90% of Kaiser Permanente's U.S. workforce opted to authorize a strike, which could be the largest in the country so far this year.

Last month, Union members voted 96% in favor of striking. Nearly 2,000 Kaiser Permanente workers here in Hawaii could be going on strike soon.

Unless something changes, 3400 Kaiser workers from Oregon and Washington will walk off the job, along with workers from five other states.

The plan for workers to strike comes after months of failed negotiations between healthcare worker unions and Kaiser, the National Nonprofit Hospital Behemoth.

And the weekend before they announced the strike, union workers marched in Southern California.

The main point of contention during contract negotiations is a proposal by Kaiser to establish a two-tier wage system.

It means that future Kaiser workers will be paid less than current workers. The union is also demanding a 4% permanent increase in wages, while the company is only proposing 2%.

In a statement to the intercept, Kaiser emphasized its appreciation for its essential workers during the pandemic and outlined a number of temporary benefits it had provided them.

An updated proposal from Kaiser to workers still includes the second tier with a significant pay cut.

Well, we don't want a two-tier system, and they seem to be holding fast on that two-tier system with the reduction in pay and benefits for new employees that would be coming, which would ultimately divide us.

And that's an old union-busting technique of dividing and conquering.

That's Kimberly Mullen, a registered nurse with Kaiser Permanente in California.

The challenge with the two-tier system is when you have people doing the same work for considerably different pay, it builds animosity towards union member against union member, it causes division.

And sometimes it will affect care of patients with the animosity.

And I don't want to take care of that, or I don't want to do that. Why are they getting this assignment? Why am I getting that assignment?

They get paid more than I do, why don't they do this or that? It could cause some kind of internal strife among the union members.

So, President and sisters, this is not a company in financial crisis. So, why is Kaiser active like this? When it thrived, it thrived going to pandemic.

Because of you working people, union people, they made money doing the pandemic. Why? Because you go in every day, you take care of patients, you risk your own health to safety to do your job.

...