Kaiser’s Allergy to Staffing
This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA. Is Kaiser allergic to being fully staffed? Because often when an employee leaves, the position never gets reposted. So departments run on skeleton crews, with overworked and burned out staff who are one crisis away from […]
State Supreme Court Rules Against Alameda Health System Workers
This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA. In a unanimous ruling on August 15th, the California Supreme Court found that public healthcare workers are not protected by the same labor laws as employees of private healthcare systems. The case (Stone vs Alameda Health […]
Kaiser: Morning Confusion
This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA. Last Wednesday Kaiser Oakland implemented a new policy. Now, before 8am, workers have to enter the hospital for a shift by badging in to the main entrance on MacArthur, as opposed to the usual normal door […]
Missing Supplies Risk Patients’ Lives
This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA. When lives are at stake, every second counts as hospital staff reach for supplies they need to provide patient care. Nurses and other staff depend on supply rooms being well-stocked so they can focus on their […]
What Do Managers Even Do?
This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA. Every day in the hospital, we see hundreds of workers caring for patients, cooking their meals, cleaning their rooms, and keeping us all safe. We work together, every day and night of the year, using our […]
TA Reached at AHS
This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA. The SEIU 1021 bargaining team has reached a tentative agreement (TA) with management, and voting takes place this week to ratify the contract. Looking through the 161 page agreement can be a bit confusing – all […]
Highland ICU Nurses Win Victory in Firing Bad Manager
This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA. Last year, Highland Hospital hired a temporary manager to fill the vacant leadership role in the ICU. Nurses on the unit immediately found the new manager to be an incompetent bully, who flaunted his many years […]
Healthcare Workers Say: No Pride in Genocide!
This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA. Over the Pride weekend, healthcare workers marched together Friday at Trans March to show solidarity with Palestinians, using the demonstration as an opportunity to bring attention to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Gaza only has one […]
It’s Always the Workers Who Sacrifice
This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA. Governor Newsom finally approved a new budget for California’s 2024-25 fiscal year last week. The original budget plan featured state funding for minimum wage increases for healthcare workers starting on July 1st. The wage increases are […]
No Cuts! Staff Up Kaiser Now!
This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA. Recently, Kaiser sent an email to the president of OPEIU local 29 (office, technical, professional and health care employees) regarding upcoming measures aimed at “optimizing reception staffing by standardizing and better utilizing resources.” The precise implications […]
Kaiser Residents & Fellows Unionize – Cheers to the Next Steps!
This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA. There’s something to celebrate at Kaiser Permanente Northern California: residents and fellow physicians have unionized, and joined Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR/SEIU). Kaiser is one of the largest healthcare providers in the state, and the […]
Ready to Strike But… We Need More Transparency!
This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA. At Highland, it’s no secret that our wages aren’t keeping up with inflation, we’re critically understaffed, and management is making our jobs harder every day. We depend on our union representatives to bring our concerns to […]
All Across the Board
This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA. At Kaiser there is a mystery to be solved – how can it be that experiences at Southern California and Northern California Kaiser are so different? For Kaiser patients this could mean that transferring your Southern […]
Don’t Blame the Victim, Blame the System
This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA. Here in Oakland, at Highland Hospital, our doors are open and we provide care for those who have been pushed to the brink of society (the unemployed, the unhoused, the uninsured). We have chosen to work […]
If Hospital Workers Ran Highland…
This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA. Alameda Health System CEO James Jackson recently sent out a memo that AHS is facing a budget gap of $100 million for the fiscal year, and needs to close the gap by June of this year. […]
Residents Unionize!
This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA. In recent weeks, residents from Kaiser Northern California have formalized the process of starting a union. This marks a significant step forward, potentially establishing the first union for residents in a Northern California Kaiser facility and […]
Don’t Be Tricked: Nurses with a Living Wage Improve Patient Care!
This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA. Last week, Santa Clara County nurses of the Registered Nurses Professional Association went on a three-day strike at three public hospitals – Santa Clara Valley Medical Center (VMC), O’Connor and St. Louise. This was the union’s […]
What’s Going on With Bargaining at AHS?
This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA. Our Highland SEIU-1021 contract expires May 31st, which is only 3 months away! So far, we’ve had a contract kick-off rally, where we chanted, ate some burritos, and got ourselves a purple union t-shirt. We’ve also […]
Highland Workers Hold Daily Vigils
This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Kaiser and Highland Hospitals in Oakland, CA. For the past few weeks, workers at Highland Hospital have been commemorating the lives of the children killed in the ongoing attacks on Gaza. What started as a one time action on World Children’s Day (November […]
How Kaiser Treats Its Heroes
Kaiser Permanente calls its workers heroes, but it just laid off 200 of them.
Healthcare Workers Tired and Scared
These two words best describe how healthcare workers across the board feel about dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s been almost a year now since January 20th, when the first case of COVID-19 was announced in the U.S. Ever since, healthcare workers have been put through a series of confusing, stressful, and dangerous set-ups to […]