Weather Cools as Bargaining Heats Up for Kaiser Therapists

November 2013

The Kaiser Physical, Occupational and Recreation Therapists continue to inch closer to their first UNAC/UHCP contract. Their negotiating team is active, engaged and confident. As in the national Kaiser negotiations last year, the process has been interest-based, rather than a more traditional bargaining process.

This has led to resolution of numerous issues. However, tough issues remain, involving workloads and economics. The advantage of having a union contract is shown by the fact that the therapists have fallen behind other health care professions at Kaiser over the past ten years. The therapists defeated a proposal to worsen the problem by creating a new lower tier for new hires. They have also proposed ways to address the inequity and continue to press on this point.