Kaiser patients report canceled procedures, long phone waits amid California strike

Members of Kaiser Permanente said they certainly felt the impact of last week's sympathy strikes, described by one labor union as the largest such job action in the United States in 127 years.

Cancer survivor Bil Paul, a resident of the Solano County community of Dixon , said he received a call last Thursday canceling a medical procedure aimed at evaluating whether any new tumors had developed in his bladder.

Jessica Bartholow, a resident of the Bay Area community of San Leandro, said she got an automated message saying she would be on hold several hours due to a work stoppage when she called Kaiser to cancel her mammogram. She didn't want to go to her Thursday appointment, she said, because she would have had to cross a picket line.

In a statement sent to The Sacramento Bee on Wednesday, Kaiser executives apologized for "any inconvenience (members) may have experienced during last week's strikes.

"As always, the health and safety of our members is our priority. We worked hard to reduce the disruption the strikes were intended to cause, ensuring we continued to provide urgent and emergency care, and critical medical appointments."

Over the course of Thursday and Friday, unions representing more than 60,000 workers hit the picket line in support of Kaiser stationary engineers and biomedical technicians who have been on strike since Sept. 18. The roughly 600-plus employees, all members of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 39, work in Northern California.

Walkouts by optometrists, clinical laboratory scientists, X-ray technicians, housekeepers and other front-line workers in the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, the Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 29 and the Engineers and Scientists of California Local 20. In total, about 40,000 Kaiser workers are members of those three locals.

Then the engineers were joined by the California Nurses Association, which represents roughly 22,000 registered nurses, and the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which has 4,000 Kaiser mental health clinicians in its ranks.

SEIU-UHW said its protest assembled "the largest group of working people since 1894 to say we care enough about another group of workers to leave our job, give up pay and take a stand with the Local 39 Operating Engineers."

"This is quite remarkable but not at all surprising," union leaders wrote in a message to members on the SEIU-UHW website. "As healthcare workers, we have dedicated our lives to caring for others. We have risked our lives and health these past two years to care for patients during the pandemic. After seeing our co-workers, Kaiser engineers out on strike for 62 days, we said enough is enough. We joined them on the line with courage and honor in a moment that will define us for decades to come."

While Bartholow urged Kaiser to get back to the bargaining table and hammer out a fair deal on wages with Stationary Engineers, Local 39, Paul said unions in the medical profession have a responsibility to consider the impact on patients when determining how long to go out on strike.

"I do respect people's right to strike, but on the other hand, in the medical field, that could go too far in terms of patient care," said the 78-year-old retiree. "There's a certain responsibility there. It's just like police going on strike or something or mailmen going on strike. They have to be very careful about how long they're gone."

In response to a query from The Bee, the California Nurses Association said its members never make the decision to strike lightly. After deciding to strike, the nurses association provided Kaiser with a 10-day notice to allow them to take steps to safeguard patient care, said Zenei Triunfo-Cortez, one of the union's presidents.

"We participated in a sympathy strike in solidarity with IUOE Stationary Engineers, Local 39, as we know it is through collective action that we are able to force Kaiser to supply us with the resources and staffing necessary to provide safe patient care to all patients, in all units, at all times," Triunfo-Cortez said.

Nobody wants to strike, said Jeffrey Florence, an IUOE Local 39 steward who works at Kaiser's Sacramento Medical Center, but he said it was necessary because the company wouldn't negotiate "in good faith."

Paul said he was diagnosed with early-stage bladder cancer in August and canceled a kayaking vacation to pursue treatment as quickly as he could. He went through a diagnostic procedure where doctors sent a microscopic-sized camera up the urethra and into the bladder.

Traveling that same path, doctors performed six other procedures to treat Paul's cancer: In one surgery, they removed the tumors from his bladder. Then, in six weekly procedures, they delivered a tuberculosis vaccine to his bladder that Paul said has been used for about 40 years now to prevent tumors from recurring.

Last week, he said, he was supposed to go in for another diagnostic checkup to ensure the vaccine was working. His anxiety level shot up, Paul said, when he was rescheduled to a Dec. 23 date. He said he feared tumors would have a chance to gain a foothold before they could be detected.

"I called in," Paul said, "and I said, you know, I've got cancer .... If anybody cancels or you have to cancel one of your procedures, please try and fit me in earlier. Maybe they didn't realize at the point at which they gave me the first postponement that it was a cancer situation. So they came right back, and then they gave me Dec. 8, which was to my satisfaction."

Paul, who made a career in public relations and has written a number of books, said he's gotten great care from Kaiser but that patients have to advocate for themselves and not be passive in connection with the medical system.

Bartholow said she had taken time off to get her mammogram and other medical needs taken care of, but when she heard about the strike, she decided to convert the sick time to paid time off and use the afternoon to join workers on the picket line. While there, she said, union leaders told her that Kaiser representatives had not scheduled any talks with the engineers over the two days of sympathy strikes.

"I don't blame the striking workers for me missing my mammogram and my flu shot and postponing my prescription refill," said Bartholow, a Kaiser patient for more than 20 years. "But I do put responsibility on Kaiser for not meeting with their workers and staying at the table with their workers and ... getting through negotiations."

Kaiser executives said in their statement that they delivered a comprehensive proposal to Local 39 that offers across-the-board pay increases, cash payments and benefits similar to other employees.

"Unfortunately, Local 39 leadership is insisting on the same unreasonable demands it was making before its strike, that are not in line with other union-represented employees — in some cases asking nearly twice as much as what other employees receive — nor in line with our obligation to continue addressing the affordability of health care for our more than 4 million members," the company said in its statement.

In interviews on the picket line, union stewards told The Bee that Kaiser leaders submitted their initial wage proposal to the union roughly 12 hours ahead of the strike deadline, prompting a vote on picket lines where it was soundly rejected.

Florence, the Local 39 steward, said the union made a counter offer the same day, but the company insisted they put the initial proposal to another vote. That's something their union won't do, Florence and others said.

The company continues to say that engineers are asking for nearly twice as much as other employees, Florence said, but that figure relates to pension contributions and has nothing to do with wages. Kaiser is not offering to match either prevailing wages or pension contributions offered by other large health care providers, Florence said, and in fact, wages would slip further behind other engineers in the market if Kaiser's offer were accepted.

As of late Monday, Bartholow said, she had not received a call from Kaiser about why she missed her appointment, something that typically happens. She doesn't know what she will do about the appointments and missed medication, she said. She's still not comfortable crossing the engineers' picket line, she said, even though a leader of the picketing workers urged her not to delay care as a result of the strike.

"It means something very, very significant for health care workers to picket," said Bartholow, who works as chief of staff for state Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley). "It says that they really feel like they've gotten to the end, because the health care workers are there to help, and it's hard for them to see people foregoing care because of the picket."

.

Show Comment