Kaiser Position Eliminations - Resources

Download The complete EISA agreement

On Thursday, April 29 at 4:44 pm: SEIU-UHW was given a 60-day notice from Kaiser of their intent to eliminate 231 positions. The biggest groups were in Admitting and Member Services across Northern California. There were also a group of PCTs in Oakland, transporters in Walnut Creek/Antioch, Home Health administrative staff at various facilities and a scattering of other individuals.

SEIU-UHW staff, contract specialists and stewards reached out to all of the impacted members on Friday, April 30 to give them a heads up, tell them about the process and their rights, assign them a steward to accompany throughout this process, update contact information, and assure them of our support.

What happens next?

The union and Kaiser will meet to negotiate alternatives to layoffs. For at least 60 days, Kaiser will negotiate with us over these positions. We will hear their explanation for the reasoning, and we’ll push for alternatives. In the past, we have successfully negotiated enhanced early retirement packages for people who may be close to retirement or voluntary severance packages for people who might have been considering leaving anyway.
If there are other options presented, the affected employees will be contacted with their options. After the 60-day period, if there are still people in positions being eliminated, the Employment Income Security Agreement (EISA) will go into effect. For at least one year, impacted employees will have their employment and income protected. During that time, we will work jointly to place people into comparable jobs and train them for new opportunities.

Our goal is that nobody has to leave Kaiser employment unless they choose to. We have been successful in achieving that goal multiple times in the past with groups of equivalent and even larger numbers of impacted workers. Our contract is strong and it works to protect us.

If you have questions, please reach out to your steward or contract specialist.

The complete EISA agreement, Article XVI of our Local Agreement which outlines how this process works, and other contractual resources about our rights and terms of employment can be found here.

Kaiser Contract Resources