More than 1,000 Kaiser workers and supporters marched and rallied in Oakland Monday to protest planned job cuts at the health care giant, organizers said.
The march will started at Mosswood Park and headed toward the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center on MacArthur Boulevard. The action is not a strike, organizers said.
The cuts include outsourcing 96 pharmacy warehouse workers in Oakland and Livermore and outsourcing 43 licensed vocational nurses in San Francisco, Oakland, San Leandro, Santa Clara and Walnut Creek, according to SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West.
In response, John Nelson, a Kaiser spokesman, provided the following statement:
"It’s important for our members and patients to know that this informational picketing is not a strike and it does not impact our care delivery or operations. While this union is staging picketing, the physicians and employees of Kaiser Permanente will remain focused on the important work of delivering high-quality, affordable care to our members and improving the health of the communities we serve.
Kaiser Permanente is growing and adding jobs. As one of the largest private employers in California with more than 149,000 employees and 16,000 physicians, we have added more than 13,000 jobs in the state since 2015. We have more than 12,000 open staff positions and will continue to add many kinds of jobs, including blue collar jobs. The number of our employees represented by SEIU-UHW has grown by more than 8,000 over the same period.
We are disappointed that the current leadership of SEIU-UHW has chosen to mischaracterize Kaiser Permanente’s strong commitment to labor and to pursue an adversarial, destructive approach to its relationships with several California health care systems. In fact, SEIU-UHW’s approach stands in stark contrast to the productive, progressive relationships we have maintained with many other unions representing our employees."
