Striking employees say staff shortages have left them feeling overworked and burnt out. That’s why we’re also begging for the increase of the… minimum wages," said Rocio Chacon, a striking Kaiser worker who also serves on the union's negotiating committee. “We don’t want to see nurses sleeping in their cars because they have to travel two hours to get home because they can’t afford the cost of living in California. Health care workers taking to the picket lines across the country are fighting for better pay and benefits - particularly in an expensive state like California, where most of the 75,000 striking Kaiser Permanente workers walked off the job Wednesday. Isaiah said she was hopeful that contract negotiations with Kaiser management would prove successful and a strike would be avoided. Kaiser also said the health care industry nationwide is facing labor shortages. Kaiser said it agreed to accelerate hiring, committing to hiring 10,000 union-represented workers this year. The union coalition is demanding that Kaiser Permanente management come up with a strategy to combat staff shortages that have left employees feeling overworked and burnt out. "That's a problem. That's part of our staffing crisis that we're trying to get fixed because we need someone at each station at all times," she said. Isaiah said she is often the only person in her unit due to a short-staffing crisis at Kaiser Permanente's hospitals, and she occasionally needs to leave her post vacant to back-fill other units. Ju'Anna Isaiah is a ward clerk transcriber in a recovery unit at a Kaiser Permanente hospital in Los Angeles, helping coordinate patients' rooms after they come out of surgery, or if a patient needs to go to intensive care. Ju'Anna Isaiah speaking with CNN's Natasha Chen today. The union coalition on strike has called staffing levels at Kaiser facilities "unsafe" and patient wait times for care "dangerous." You might have a condition that might not be critical, but because you have not been seen within that period of time that could potentially save your life, it can be something very simple that can turn onto a bigger issue.”Īmong other improvements, the union demands that Kaiser management implement a strategy to fix chronic staff shortages that leave patients out of luck when they need care. Or even being left tied in a room waiting for an X-ray or for lab work. "Coming into the emergency room and waiting to be seen for hours. "I’m having flashbacks of what it was back home, me growing up," Chacon said. “We’re exhausted," said Rocio Chacon, a striking Kaiser worker who also serves on the union's negotiating committee.Ĭhacon said the health facility she works at reminds her of the poor health care people received when she was growing up in Mexico. Kaiser Permanente workers walked off the job Wednesday to fight for a better working environment - one that is safer for patients and more tolerable for employees. Kaiser healthcare worker Rocio Chacon speaking with Natasha Chen in Los Angeles, CA, today.
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