May 28, 2010
Early Friday morning, after a three-and-a-half day marathon bargaining session, Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions reached a tentative agreement on a new, two-year National Agreement. During negotiations, the parties made progress toward improving affordability, service and quality for health plan members and being the best place to work. The unique Labor Management Partnership – the most enduring, largest, and most successful of its kind in any industry – puts industry-leading performance improvement tools into the hands of empowered workers, organized into teams, fueling constant performance improvement.
The tentative agreement provides for two annual 3% across-the-board wage increases, maintenance of the current benefit package, an enhanced sick leave cash-out option, stable funding for workforce development trust funds, and strengthening the Labor Management Partnership, the watershed 13-year old agreement under which the parties have successfully negotiated three national union contracts using interest-based negotiating. A strategy to improve quality outcomes, unit based teams were reaffirmed as part of the operating model of Kaiser Permanente.
Read more...