Updated 4/10/23 at 9:30 p.m
After the car strike and the Hollywood screenwriters, the movement expanded to health. More than 75,000 employees of Kaiser Permanente, one of the largest hospital systems in the United States, began a three-day strike on Wednesday to demand better working conditions.
The movement, led by a coalition of unions, has already started on the East Coast and is expected to spread later today to the West Coast, where the majority of the group’s workforce is based.
Employees who have experienced financial difficulties since the pandemic
Trade unions are demanding, among other things, salary increases and protection against outsourcing of services. With the pandemic, “they’ve been through the worst global health crisis in a generation, and then they come out and have to worry about paying their rent, they’re afraid of losing their home, they’re afraid of it.” [devoir] live in their car,” Renee Saldana, spokesperson for one of the unions, SEIU-UHW, told CNN.
Kaiser Permanente, headquartered in Oakland, California, said it was “disappointed” by the strike call and plans to keep its medical centers open during the strike. However, longer waiting times are to be expected, the company said. Kaiser said on Wednesday that “great progress” had been made in the negotiations and that the parties had agreed on “several proposals” on Tuesday evening. The hospital group operates dozens of hospitals and hundreds of medical centers nationwide.