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发帖数: 29846 | 1 Modified: Tuesday, January 31, 2012, 5:09pm PST
The Kaiser strike that promised to be the largest walkout in the company’s
history — wasn’t.
More than 21,000 nurses, mental health providers, optical workers and others
were called to strike Kaiser Permanente Tuesday, but far fewer appeared
to have shown up at the picket lines by the middle of the day.
The numbers remain in dispute, however.
Two-thirds of the Kaiser nurses in Northern California crossed the picket
line, Kaiser said.
“Nonsense,” countered Chuck Idelson, a spokesman with the California
Nurses Association . “Let’s see the names. They’ve made that up.”
About 80 percent of the optical and mental health workers walked the line in
the Sacramento region, according to representatives from the National Union
of Healthcare Workers, but fewer nurses walked than during a similar strike
Sept. 22.
It was NUHW’s strike. The union called workers to walk the picket line for
one day to draw attention to stalled contract negotiations at bargaining
tables across the state. The union represents about 4,000 Kaiser workers
statewide. CNA called a sympathy strike. So did Stationary Engineers Local
39, but it’s unclear how many of those workers walked.
Despite record profits, Kaiser management is insisting on major cuts to
health and retirement benefits, NUHW says.
The action was blasted by the California Hospital Association Tuesday.
“To call this a ‘sympathy strike’ is absurd,” CHA chief executive
officer Duane Dauner said in a news release. “Sympathy for whom? It’s
certainly not sympathy for the vulnerable patients who are being abandoned
by their caregivers so they can walk picket lines.” |
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