Joan Heller, Local 7R
Kaiser Permanente
Denver, Colo.
Joan Heller is an optometrist for Kaiser Permanente in Denver, Colo. and an Executive Board Member of UFCW Local 7R. Joan is a shop steward and was a key media spokesperson during the local's 20-day strike against Kaiser.
Putting Health Care Back in the Hands of the Caregiver:
UFCW Local wins after 20 day strike.
Over 1,200 UFCW members work for Kaiser in the Denver-Boulder area in everything from clinics and pharmacies to hospital emergency rooms. In every location, we've felt the impact of staff reductions. Those reductions forced us to put our licences on the line every day because with low staffing levels it's a constant struggle to provide the best care for our patients.
When our local started negotiating our latest contract in January, Kaiser refused to discuss our key issues--staffing levels and job security. By March 1, Kaiser forced us to take a strike vote, and more than 90 percent of us voted to put up picket lines rather than give up on improving patient care.
Just a few weeks before the strike, an emergency room nurse was alone during her shift. With two very sick patients and no one to help her transport them to x-ray or the cath lab, she had to leave one?whose blood was soaking the linens?while she moved the other.
It was imperative to fight for safe staffing levels in the contract because the next person in that emergency room could be someone in my family or your family.
After twenty days on strike, we won historic staffing level contract language. The new UFCW contract says that Kaiser cannot outsource to diminish our current staffing levels.
We won the right to take staffing level grievances to an arbitrator who can fine the company if it risks patient care with unsafe staffing levels.
What's even more historic is that with our new contract, we are the first health care workers in the country who can take the employer to federal court if it does not protect patient care by providing adequate staffing levels.
Through the UFCW, we have taken health care and put it back into the hands of the caregivers' where it belongs.
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