What happened at this week’s "kickoff” of labor negotiations
between Kaiser Permanente and the
"partnership unions”?
Well… there wasn't any actual "bargaining."
After a three-day weekend of prancing around Disneyland with
Kaiser execs, the partnership unions spent Monday and Tuesday in a "bargaining
kickoff.” On Monday, Kaiser’s execs and union officials made speeches interspersed
with "Instant Recesses” and "Thrive Activities" to keep
participants awake.
On Tuesday, the unions were trained on how to do
“interest-based bargaining.”
As far as speeches, sources say Chuck Columbus (Senior VP and Chief Human Resources Officer for
Kaiser) was the first speaker and offered a gloom-and-doom picture about the
vague, but very dangerous, "challenges" lurking in Kaiser’s future.
Don’t trust Chuck.
He formerly
served as the VP of Human Resources at Ford
Motor Co., where he eliminated the defined-benefit pension plan for new
hires and forced them into a 401(k) plan. He also implemented a two-tiered wage
system that pays new Ford employees only half as much as regular employees.
This pushed Ford’s profits through the roof.
In 2009, Kaiser's then-CEO George Halvorson and COO Bernard
Tyson recruited Columbus to do the same thing at Kaiser… with the assistance
of SEIU’s newly implanted trustee from the East Coast, Dave Regan.
A year ago, Regan and Columbus gave a joint presentation to
the California Public Employees Retirement System where Regan talked about cutting workers’ benefits if they
don't meet the requirements of Kaiser's wellness program. You can see a video of
Regan's comments on
this earlier post.
 |
| Dave Regan with his buddy, Chuck Columbus, in Jan. 2014 |
At Monday's meeting, Columbus (who earns $1.5 million a year
at Kaiser) told workers about the vague challenges facing Kaiser in the future,
but forgot to mention one of the biggest challenges -- where to stash Kaiser's billions
of profits. Last year alone, Kaiser pocketed profits of $3.1 billion.
Kaiser's Ray Baxter
spoke about Kaiser's corporate wellness
program, which has been "re-branded" as "Total Health.”
Another
speech had this intriguing title: "One
KP.”
A bevy of bloviating fatcats took the stage including Dennis Dabney (Senior VP of Labor
Relations and Labor Management Partnership for Kaiser), Jim Pruitt (VP of Labor Management Partnership and Labor Relations
for The Permanente Federation), Artie
Southam (Executive VP of Kaiser’s Health Plan Operations), Hal
Ruddick (Executive Director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente
Unions), and Dave Regan.
Lastly, here's a development that speaks volumes about the
partnership bargaining. According to Kaiser workers in Northern California,
Kaiser is currently laying off SEIU-UHW members with the assistance of SEIU-UHW
officials.
At Kaiser Vallejo Medical Center
in Northern California, SEIU-UHW members with as many as 30 years of seniority
are receiving layoff notices. They say workers are getting layoff notices
without regard to seniority lists. And workers say SEIU-UHW is totally AWOL... even after workers make phone calls and send e-mails to Union Reps and
SEIU-UHW’s headquarters in Oakland.
Again... these layoffs are happening as bargaining is
underway. And as Kaiser's profits and membership are booming.
Where’s SEIU-UHW?
In the boss's pocket.
