AI and Technology subgroup leads Payman Roshan, of Kaiser Permanente, and Dolores Hunsaker, of the United Steelworkers Local 7600, guide their subgroup members through lively discussions.
Spotlight on AI and technology, among several key topics in this year’s negotiations.
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.