Kaiser Permanente and the Alliance of Health Care Unions met August 19 to 23 in Los Angeles to continue discussions on a new national agreement. The current national agreement expires on September 30, 2025.

During the session, Kaiser Permanente and the Alliance approved 10 new tentative agreements – raising the total number to 44.

The subgroups focused on partnership effectiveness and AI and technology completed their work and the full bargaining team reached consensus on their recommendations. The Staffing and Patient Care subgroup will continue its work at the next session.

The parties continued to discuss economic proposals. Both sides are working toward a fair agreement that includes across-the-board wage increases and enhanced employee benefits.

In addition, Alliance union and KP leaders from across the organization gathered at this session in a joint effort to advance local negotiations. Making progress in these negotiations is an important step toward reaching a new national agreement. 

The focus on economics and local bargaining follows progress made in early August, when Kaiser Permanente and the Alliance reached 30 national tentative agreements.

This session, the full bargaining team—known as the Common Issues Committee—approved new tentative agreements on:

• Minimum wage rates in every market, including corresponding adjustments to wage scales and career ladders
• Increased contributions to agreed-upon labor education, training, and retirement trusts, including increased training and pension funding for International Union of Operating Engineers locals 1, 99, and 501 in Colorado, Mid-Atlantic and Southern California.
• Strengthening the Labor Management Partnership contract language concerning artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies 

Subgroup updates

During this session, the CIC reached agreement on several recommendations from the Partnership Effectiveness subgroup, including the following:

• Agreement that a sample UBT agenda will be created as a guide for UBTs

• Emphasize instructor-led LMP training courses both in-person and virtually

• Create a joint body to review, assess, and recommend ways to enhance UBT Tracker—a web-based tool to collect and report data on unit-based teams—whenever it is approved for update or replacement

The CIC also reached consensus on contract language from the AI and Technology subgroup. The language governs the use of AI and technology to enhance the patient care experience at Kaiser Permanente, integrate employee input into AI development, and help ensure ethical, safe deployment of technology.

The Staffing and Patient Care subgroup addressed their final deliverable to develop guidance for working in partnership to establish or change work schedules that meet the needs of patients, employees and Kaiser Permanente. Management and labor representatives were unable to reach consensus before the session ended. They will continue their discussion in the next session.

What’s next

The next national bargaining session is scheduled September 9 to 13 in Los Angeles.

Kaiser Permanente and the Alliance of Health Care Unions met August 5 to 7 in Portland, Oregon, to continue negotiating a new national agreement. The current national agreement expires September 30, 2025.

During the session, the parties traded comprehensive economic proposals. Labor and management leaders continued to discuss economic counterproposals that include across-the-board wage increases. Both parties have put forward full salary and benefits packages.

The full bargaining team, known as the Common Issues Committee (CIC), approved 2 economic tentative agreements to enhance the retiree medical benefit premium subsidy in all markets and to provide the retiree medical premium subsidy in Washington for the first time. Three more tentative agreements were approved to remove copays for allergy shots, cover hearing aids in markets without coverage, and eliminate durable medical equipment co-insurance.

Additionally, the bargaining team approved 25 recommendations as tentative agreements from the 3 bargaining subgroups.

The bargaining subgroups presented a range of proposals to the CIC focused on these priorities:

• AI (artificial intelligence) and technology
• Labor-management partnership effectiveness
• Staffing and patient care

AI and technology

This subgroup is developing guidelines for partnering on the use of AI and emerging technologies. This includes training employees to use new technologies and educating them on their effective use. By working together in partnership, Kaiser Permanente and Alliance unions will help ensure technology and artificial intelligence deliver high-quality, affordable care for our members and patients.

The CIC reached the following tentative agreements:

• Establish a joint labor and management taskforce on AI and technology
• Leverage unit-based teams to involve workers in driving innovation 

Partnership effectiveness

The Partnership Effectiveness subgroup proposed several ways to strengthen the Labor Management Partnership. They developed recommendations to enhance unit-based teams, LMP education and training, and measuring the effectiveness of the partnership above the UBT level.

The CIC reached the following tentative agreements:

• Verify the performance of teams through random sampling.
• Consult learning experts to develop methods for measuring the effectiveness of LMP training.
• Establish a joint committee to create a process to measure the LMP’s effectiveness above the UBT level.
• Advance and sustain Just Culture, an operational strategy that supports speaking up and reporting mistakes and near misses.

Spotlight: Staffing and patient care

This subgroup is tasked with developing recommendations in the following areas:

• Review existing agreements on staffing, backfill, budgeting and flexibility, and identify gaps and barriers to effective implementation.
• Recommend ways to remove barriers to full implementation of the agreements.
• Plan for future employment needs and improve forecasting and preparedness for shifts in staffing and patient care.
• Develop guidance for working in partnership to establish or change work schedules that meet the needs of patients, Kaiser Permanente, and employees. 

The CIC reached the following tentative agreements:

• Develop staffing dashboards for markets to enable easy access to critical staffing data. Subgroup members were inspired by a successful pilot at Kaiser Permanente Downey Medical Center and other Southern California facilities.
• Propose escalation steps to address implementation issues that can’t be resolved by staffing committees. 
• Create toolkits and educational materials to support staffing committees and the joint staffing process. 
• Identify criteria and factors for hard-to-fill positions.

What’s Next

The next national bargaining session is scheduled for August 19 to 22 in Los Angeles.

Kaiser Permanente and the Alliance are part of the Labor Management Partnership, the largest and longest-running partnership of its kind in the United States.

Kaiser Permanente and the Alliance of Health Care Unions met June 3 to 5 in Los Angeles to continue negotiating a new national agreement. 

During the session, the Alliance presented Kaiser Permanente with an economic proposal that includes elements on wages, staffing, medical benefits, retirement plans, trust fund contributions, and other issues.

After some discussion about the proposal, KP and the Alliance reached 4 tentative agreements on retiree benefits, which include enhancements to the retiree medical health reimbursement account and the qualified dependent death benefit.

KP is considering the Alliance’s other economic proposals and looks forward to continuing negotiations with a focus on reaching an agreement that benefits KP’s employees, members, and organization.

Subgroup Updates

This bargaining session continued using interest-based negotiations processes. Subgroups convened during bargaining to address 3 priority topics for KP and the Alliance: 

•  AI (artificial intelligence) and technology 
•  Labor-management partnership effectiveness
• Staffing and patient care 

Participants in the Staffing and Patient Care subgroup discussed staffing, flexibility and joint staffing processes. Management and labor met in small groups to exchange ideas and share their perspectives to help identify common interests. 

The Partnership Effectiveness subgroup dove in more deeply on their key topics – unit-based teams, LMP training, and just culture. Joint subject matter experts gave presentations on these topics and the subgroup identified shared interests to move toward making recommendations to the full bargaining committee. 

Spotlight: AI in Health Care

The AI and Technology subgroup is developing guidelines for working in partnership on the use of AI and emerging technologies. Their scope includes how to prepare employees with the necessary skills and how to best educate and engage employees and managers.

At this bargaining session, the discussion was positive and lively, with an overall agreement that AI is here to stay and agreement that KP should be a leader in its thoughtful and responsible adoption. During the subgroup working sessions, there were robust discussions on employee involvement in decision-making and implementation while ensuring the enterprise remains nimble, competitive and innovative.  

The subgroup’s work included a brainstorming session to develop its proposal to the full bargaining team on how the new agreement can guide AI use to support employees, patients, and labor-management collaboration at KP. Proposals are due by the August 5 to 7 bargaining session. 

How Kaiser Permanente uses AI 

At Kaiser Permanente, using AI thoughtfully and responsibly means ensuring the technology is safe, trustworthy, fair, and reliable.

AI already supports KP care teams and employees by:

• Helping physicians and health care professionals capture notes during patient visits so they can focus on their patients
• Helping care teams save lives by predicting when hospital patients’ conditions might worsen 
• Summarizing documents and developing initial drafts of messages for consideration to support employee and physician productivity

AI tools present new opportunities and potentially different ways of working than employees and managers have faced before. Union and management leaders will need to work together to navigate the changes at Kaiser Permanente.

Fortunately, they’ve worked together in partnership before to help the organization adjust to major technological changes. Examples include:

• Pioneering electronic health records in 2005 
• Implementing digital X-rays
• Enabling remote patient monitoring for diabetes management and maternity care

Together, union members and Kaiser Permanente leaders can find ways to responsibly use AI and unlock its potential while addressing possible impacts.

Labor Management Partnership 

The Alliance of Health Care Unions consists of 23 local unions. They represent about 61,000 nurses, medical assistants, lab technicians, environmental services workers, engineers, pharmacists, therapists, and other health care professionals.

KP and the Alliance are part of the Labor Management Partnership, the largest and longest-running partnership of its kind in the United States. 

The partnership brings together employees, managers, and physicians to identify opportunities to improve service, quality, affordability, and the quality of the work environment.

What’s Next

The next national bargaining session is scheduled for July 15 to 17, 2025.

On May 6, Kaiser Permanente and the Alliance of Health Care Unions kicked off negotiations for a new national agreement. 

Labor Management Partnership chairs Arlene Peasnall, Jim Pruitt, and Hal Ruddick opened the 3-day session. They emphasized partnership, trust-building, and addressing health care challenges together. 

Labor and management representatives sat together as they learned about interest-based negotiations. These negotiations focus on each party’s interests, needs and concerns to develop mutually beneficial solutions. The approach is foundational to the Labor Management Partnership. 

Bargaining team members also presented partnership successes and challenges related to unit-based teams, affordability, and career development. The goal was to show that working together can lead to solutions for important issues and advancements for employees and patients and members. They also made clear that there is still work to do in these key areas.

The Alliance National Agreement expires September 30, 2025. 

Bargaining sessions are scheduled through the summer, with the goal of reaching a new agreement before the contract expires.

Labor Management Partnership 

The Alliance of Health Care Unions is made up of 23 local unions. They represent about 61,000 nurses, medical assistants, lab technicians, environmental services workers, engineers, pharmacists, therapists, and other health care professionals.

KP and the Alliance are part of the Labor Management Partnership, the largest and longest-running partnership of its kind in the United States. 

The partnership brings together employees, managers, and physicians to identify opportunities to improve service, quality, affordability, and the quality of the work environment.

Common Issues Committee

The national bargaining team is known as the Common Issues Committee. A new Common Issues Committee is formed each bargaining year, comprised of management and labor representatives.

KP and Alliance leaders select members and assign each to a subgroup to address a topic area. For 2025, those topics are:

• AI (artificial intelligence) and technology
• Labor-management partnership effectiveness
• Staffing and patient care

Subgroups

A manager and an Alliance union representative lead each subgroup. (One subgroup has more than one pair of co-leads). 

Subgroup members work to understand each other’s interests and find creative ways to address key topics or solve problems.

During the May session, subgroups began their work.

The AI subgroup heard from subject matter experts who shared their perspectives about how artificial intelligence might be applied to health care settings.

The Staffing and Patient Care subgroup reviewed their deliverables, discussed the best way to tackle their work together, and formed small groups to address specific issues.

And the Partnership Effectiveness subgroup divided into 3 teams, each to consider a key focus area: unit-based teams, Labor Management Partnership training, and just culture, an operational strategy that promotes continuous learning and performance improvement.

Over the course of bargaining, each subgroup will bring its proposals to the Common Issues Committee for discussion and agreement. The Common Issues Committee will also reach agreement on wages, benefits, and other economic issues. The finalized contract then goes to KP management for approval and is ratified by the members of each local union in the Alliance. 

The next national bargaining session is scheduled for June 3 to 5, 2025.

Kaiser Permanente and the Alliance of Health Care Unions will begin national bargaining on May 6. It will be the largest health care worker negotiations in the United States this year.

The parties will renegotiate the 2021 KP-Alliance National Agreement, which expires September 30, and covers 61,000 Alliance-represented employees. The scope of the national agreement includes managers and doctors who are responsible for helping to implement the agreement.

Workers across Kaiser Permanente

The Alliance of 23 local unions represent nurses, medical assistants, lab technicians, environmental services workers, engineers, pharmacists, therapists and other classifications across Kaiser Permanente’s 8 markets.

Bargaining sessions are scheduled throughout the summer. More than 100 KP and Alliance representatives from across the country will negotiate the new agreement.  

Key topics include:

• Staffing and patient care
• Labor-management partnership effectiveness
• Economics like across-the-board wage increases
• Artificial intelligence and technology

Moving forward through partnership

Hal Ruddick, Alliance executive director, is optimistic but says both sides are at a critical point in their relationship as the Labor Management Partnership turns 28 this fall. In 2021, a strike over pay and staffing issues was averted when negotiators reached agreement.

“The Alliance is committed to demonstrating that partnership is the path forward,” Ruddick says. “Let's seize this moment to build a strong foundation for our future.”

Kaiser Permanente fully supports the partnership, says Greg Holmes, executive vice president and chief human resources officer of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals.

“Kaiser Permanente is proud that our Labor Management Partnership is the largest and longest running in the U.S. and that our shared dedication to our employees and members has guided us over the last 28 years,” Holmes says. “We are committed to strengthening and growing this partnership so that together we can continue to advance the mission of Kaiser Permanente.”

Negotiations bring opportunity

Arlene Peasnall, senior vice president of Human Resources Consulting, Labor Relations and the Office of Labor Management Partnership for Kaiser Permanente, says the bargaining talks provide an opportunity to transform patient-centered care.

“We believe it is our shared responsibility with our Alliance union partners to innovate and evolve to find new ways to provide high-quality care that is affordable and accessible,” says Peasnall. "As labor and management begin national bargaining, I am confident in our collective ability to achieve meaningful progress.”

Jim Pruitt, vice president of LMP and National Labor Relations for The Permanente Federation, stressed the significance of the upcoming negotiations.

 “By focusing on shared goals and innovative solutions, we can create a positive impact on our workforce and the patients we serve,” says Pruitt. “This is our chance to set a new standard for collaboration and excellence in health care."

An interest-based approach

In addition to national bargaining, KP and Alliance representatives are negotiating local contracts in each market. In local bargaining, negotiators address issues such as operational concerns, seniority, wage scales, and shift differentials.

During bargaining, management and labor representatives use interest-based negotiations to understand each other’s priorities and identify creative solutions. The approach is foundational to the Labor Management Partnership. It  has yielded better outcomes and helped build better working relationships and support for the national agreement.

Watch this video to learn more about Alliance national bargaining.