Kaiser nurses in Santa Rosa to hold ‘informational picket’ to highlight staffing shortages

Kaiser Permanente nurses plan to picket Thursday evening in front of the company’s Santa Rosa Medical Center on Bicentennial Way to bring attention to what they describe as chronic staffing shortages.

The protest, from 4 to 6 p.m., is an “informational picket” not a walkout or work stoppage, said Chuleenan Svetvilas, a spokeswoman for National Nurses Union, which is organizing the demonstration with the California Nurses Association.

The picket, which is also scheduled at 21 other Kaiser Permanente locations in Northern California, the Central Valley and Los Angeles, will take place during non-work hours for nurses who participate, Svetvilas said. The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Union represents 22,000 Kaiser registered nurses and nurse practitioners in California.

The union said Kaiser nurses and nurse practitioners have been negotiating for a new contract since June, while Los Angeles nurses have been in labor talks since August 2021. Among the key issues: infectious disease safety provisions; workplace violence protections; and minimum staffing guidelines that ensure patient safety.

A Kaiser spokesperson Tuesday evening said Kaiser was not prepared to comment on the planned picketing Thursday.

Lisa Maldonado, a union representative, said Kaiser staffing ratios are the bare minimum, leaving nurses struggling to care for their patients. “If nurses are not running around from room to room with their hair on fire, Kaiser feels like it’s losing money,” Maldonado said.

The one day of picketing is the latest labor protest against the health care giant. Mental health staff represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers have been on strike since Aug. 15, also in protest of staffing shortages.

That dispute has spread to Hawaii, where mental health workers at Kaiser Moanalua Medical Center in Honolulu have also walked off the job. The National Union of Healthcare Workers said about 50 mental health care workers are responsible for 266,000 Kaiser members in that state.

Mental health care workers in Santa Rosa are scheduled to continue picketing on Wednesday and Friday, between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m.

Both the nurses and mental health care worker unions argue Kaiser has failed to hire enough staff to adequately care for its members. They say Kaiser has generated billions in revenue, even during the pandemic.

“Kaiser made more than $14 billion during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, and yet we are still struggling with chronic short staffing statewide,” said CNA President Cathy Kennedy, a registered nurse in the neonatal ICU at Kaiser Roseville.

“There is simply no reason or excuse for nurses to be short staffed this long into the pandemic,” she said.

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