“No contract, no peace!”
“Scabs, go home!”
“They say cut back, we say fight back!”
About 15 picketers circling the entrance to the Hilo Kaiser Permanente clinic Thursday chanted these and other phrases on the third day of a labor strike by employees represented by the Alliance of Health Care Unions.
Hawaii’s Unite Here Local 5, which represents over 1,900 Kaiser workers statewide and led the picket line at the Hilo clinic, is part of the alliance that represents the tens of thousands of Kaiser workers in Hawaii and California picketing this week for better staffing levels, benefits and pay.
Negotiations have been active since April, but a lack of agreement led to the current contract expiring on Sept. 30, recent press releases from Local 5 have said.
Keokilani Keliikuli-Teixeira, an OB/GYN medical assistant who has been at the Hilo clinic for 20 years, said the lapse of the contract and decision to strike have been “nerve-wracking, very concerning and … very scary.”
She said about 30 picketers were rotating into the line in shifts to keep it going from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, and said her main reason for striking was the pay discrepancy.
“Our pay increases have not been able to reflect what’s going on in our economy,” said Keliikuli-Teixeira. “We’re pretty far behind.”
Keliikuli-Teixeira said that the issues would “more than likely not” be resolved by Sunday night, which is when the five-day strike will end.
A strike beyond Sunday would require a fresh vote from union members and a new 10-day notification to Kaiser, Local 5 Financial Secretary and Treasurer Cade Watanabe said at Thursday’s picket line.
“It’s not just about making sure we get wages that allow us to survive in these very expensive islands all across the state — we’ve got to make sure that we address the critical issue of staffing and workload,” Watanabe said. “We’re committed to bargaining.”
Keliikuli-Teixeira said that the Kaiser Permanente Hawaii region was combined with the health care giant’s Southern California region in recent years, which she said leaves the people making the decisions affecting Hawaii workers an ocean away from the actual employees themselves.
“It’s very different mindsets from when we had local Hawaii presidents of the company,” she said. “It’s a lot of number-crunching, a lot of watching how much money we were making them. We’re not people anymore.”
Hilo resident Carole Abe, a primary care medical assistant at the Hilo clinic for 23 years, also said pay was her primary reason for joining the picket line this week. Both Abe and Keliikuli-Teixeira each have two children at home, but Abe noted that she feels more for workers like Keliikuli-Teixeira, who supports her household as a single parent and commutes from Kurtistown.
Local 5 press releases about the strike have said Hawaii Kaiser workers earn up to 30% less than mainland employees in the same roles.
“My husband and I, we both work, but we’re always relying on paycheck to paycheck,” Abe said. “It’s unfair. Hawaii’s not second class, you know? We’re under the same company and do the same work.”
“Being a small clinic, we all kind of pick up multiple roles — being the clerk for our department, being the shot nurse,” said Kanoe Arai, who has been a licensed practical nurse in pediatrics at the Hilo clinic for 10 years. “The mainland Kaisers have extra staff in the department to do those jobs, so we do, like, three times as much as them.”
A Wednesday statement from Kaiser Permanente assured plan members that the strike would end on Sunday and that their “hospital, emergency department, urgent care centers, and most clinics remain open and ready to serve you,” while their laboratory and pharmacy departments are “prioritizing urgent needs to ensure timely care.”
The statement said that Kaiser officials “expect to return to full operations next week.”
“We are deeply grateful to the many dedicated employees who continue to support our operations with care and commitment,” the statement said. “Together, we are ensuring our members experience aloha, receive the high-quality care they deserve, and the continuity of care they always get from us — because caring for Hawaii’s people like family is at the heart of everything we do.”
Email Kyveli Diener at kdiener@hawaiitribune-herald.com.