Hundreds of Kaiser workers picket Santa Rosa medical center

With calls for safe staffing and better pay, hundreds of Kaiser Permanente health care workers on Wednesday participated in a lunch-time labor rally in Santa Rosa.

The workers, carrying signs and soliciting honks from passersby, walked a long picket line along Mendocino Avenue at the Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa Medical Center on Bicentennial Way.

The rally was organized by the Service Employees International Union - United Healthcare Workers West, or SEIU-UHW, which represents 1,700 workers in Santa Rosa and is currently negotiating a labor agreement.

Kaiser Permanente on Wednesday said the rally was an “attempt to create bargaining leverage” rather than an effort to bring attention to staffing needs.

However, union officials say safe staffing and better pay are inextricable.

“We just want a decent cost of living (increase) to match inflation,” said DJ Manchester, a medical assistant and field organizer with SEIU-UHW.

Workers participating in the rally, some of them carrying signs that read, “I can’t afford to live where I work,” and “Our patients need more staff,” said Kaiser Permanente needs to improve pay to retain and attract more workers.

The health care provider said Wednesday that one of the key bargaining issues, as usual, involves compensation and that it is committed to “continuing to provide market-competitive wages and benefits.” Kaiser said its philosophy is to provide a compensation “premium” of up to 10% above the local market rate.

Kaiser said wage rates “vary across markets” but that the union is asking for the same wage increases for every part of the country, regardless of what wage rates are in those markets.

“This dynamic creates significant cost challenges in trying to make health care more affordable for the organization’s members,” Kaiser said in a statement Wednesday.

Manchester, the SEIU-UHW field organizer, said she expected close to 680 workers from various Kaiser medical offices in Santa Rosa to participate in the rally.

In its statement Wednesday, Kaiser said both sides of labor negotiations agree to work together to accelerate hiring and set a joint goal of hiring 10,000 new people its ranks nationally. Kaiser said it has thus far hired 6,500 positions toward that goal.

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pressreno.