#Healthcare Strike

[iww-gnv]

Oct 30 (Reuters) - Some employees at CVS Health Corp (CVS.N) and Walgreens Boots Alliance's (WBA.O) U.S. pharmacies launched a three-day walkout starting Monday to push the companies to improve working conditions and add more staff to their stores. The walkout, which has been dubbed "Pharmageddon" on social media platforms such as Meta's Facebook where it was largely planned, started on Monday and led to the closing of some stores in New York City, two organizers told Reuters. Shane Jerominski, a former Walgreens pharmacist and one of the organizers of the walkout, told Reuters that as many as 5,000 pharmacy workers would walk out across the three days, but said that the exact number of affected stores and participating staff was not clear due to the lack of a union.

[destielmemenews]

"Picketers across California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington who are represented by a coalition of unions walked off the job Wednesday. They are seeking higher wages and solutions to a short-staffing crisis, exacerbated by the pandemic, that has left workers feeling overburdened and run down."

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[gwydionmisha]

I Support the Strike.

[reasonsforhope]

Non-paywalled version here.

"Tens of thousands of workers at Kaiser Permanente hospitals and clinics across the country will soon vote on whether to authorize a strike, union officials announced Thursday.

The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, which includes a dozen local unions with members in seven states and the District of Columbia, said voting would begin Saturday [August 26] and extend into the middle of September. Any strike would start no earlier than Oct. 1.

More than 80,000 employees are represented by the coalition, which counts among its members a wide range of hospital and clinic workers including nursing assistants, phlebotomists, pharmacy technicians and housekeepers. The coalition said that it represents roughly 40% of the overall Kaiser Permanente workforce.

Union leaders said that if a strike moves forward, it would be the largest strike of healthcare workers in the history of the country. They faulted Kaiser for inadequate and unsafe staffing and said the healthcare giant had failed to bargain with them in good faith by refusing to provide them with crucial information during negotiations, among other unfair labor practices.

“Patient care is in crisis at Kaiser Permanente,” said Linda Bridges, president of one of the unions in the coalition, OPEIU Local 2in Silver Spring, Md. “Staffing was decimated during the pandemic and it has not gotten any better. The problem we’re dealing with is Kaiser is not hearing us.

“Kaiser can and must do better. ... They need to stop the unfair labor practices and address the healthcare staffing needs now.”

Regan, the SEIU-UHW president, said the coalition has proposed a $25 hourly minimum wage for its members across the Kaiser Permanente system, saying that “you cannot take care of a family in Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Honolulu” on $19 to $21 an hour. He said Kaiser had recently proposed a much lower minimum — $21 an hour — in 2026."

-via Los Angeles Times, August 24, 2023

Note: Also, if you have Kaiser and you've been putting off any doctors appointments, uh...you might want to make those asap.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

After 12 days on hunger strike, Alexe Frédéric Migneault feels they have won a round in their battle against Quebec's health insurance board (RAMQ) and is ending their fast. Although their wish for health insurance cards to have a third gender option ("X") has not been granted, Migneault, who is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, feels they have advanced the cause. "Great strides have been made," wrote Alexe Frédéric Migneault on their Facebook page early Friday evening. "The organizations that represent me and I were able to meet high-level people. I don't think it was all in vain. We managed to draw their attention to the unreasonable delays that people like me have to endure, which is already an achievement."

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Tagging @politicsofcanada

[macmanx]

The California Faculty Association is going on Strike against the California State University system!

They are fighting for:

Better pay so they can afford to live in the state they're teaching in.

More manageable workloads to allow for effective student support.

Expanded counseling services to improve students' access to mental healthcare.

All of which should be reasonable, considering:

The CSU's expendable net assets have grown from $3.3 billion in 2012, to $8.1 billion in 2022. If CSU management funded our bargaining proposals from their annual cash surpluses, they wouldn't even have to draw from these reserves.

Teachers can do the math, but CSU management is hoping you can't.

[vryivs]

I always forget that monarchists exist and then I see someone with the username duchessofmyheartforever or williamisababe posting about how it's mean to giggle at an ultrarich economic leech experiencing just a fraction of struggle and inconvenience (because lets be honest, he probably wont kick the bucket��his doctors are paid to keep his corpse animated long after it ceases to be humane)

[trepidatious-ly]

[theriverbeyond]

bitches will procrastinate an academic presentation for 2 months and then be stressed

[iww-gnv]

Tens of thousands of workers at Kaiser Permanente health care locations -- including in Colorado -- are now on strike. Picketing has begun outside facilities like the Aurora Centrepoint Medical Offices where the strikers are wearing purple shirts and waving signs, many saying "PATIENT CARE!" There are approximately 30 places in Colorado where the picketing will be happening. The strike is the largest for health care workers in U.S. history and is expected to last for three days. Kaiser Permanente management and union leaders spent the night and into this morning trying to work out a deal. Over the weekend, the two sides failed to reach an agreement with the main issues being low pay, short staffing and long wait times that employees say many patients are facing. In addition to Colorado, the strike is happening in California, Oregon, Virginia, Washington state and Washington, D.C., according to the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions.

[breads-voice]

Nurses are not heroes.

That was a dangerous narrative perpetuated by the government and media at the height of Covid. It prevents them from being seen as human with human needs. Now it’s being used by the same media and government to justify the horrendous working conditions and pressure they are being put under.

Nurses stay unpaid after every shift to help their patients and colleagues. That’s great! Nurses are heroes ❤️

Nurses working through their breaks to help their patients. That’s great! Nurses are heroes. ❤️

Nurses are dealing with unalive and traumatic situations every day. Nurses are heroes ❤️

Nurses get beaten and abused on shift by patients and relatives but it’s ‘part of the job’. Nurses are heroes ❤️

There is nothing heroic about a person not getting adequate rest between shifts. An exhausted nurse should not be looking after anybody other than themselves. They are human.

There’s nothing heroic about a person not being able to provide themselves with adequate nutrition or hydration. They are human.

There is nothing heroic about not receiving proper support or acknowledgment of the trauma they go through every day. Same with assistants and paramedics. They’re still human.

There is nothing heroic about being black and blue by a patient or stalked by a relative and having to see them the next day. Not being able to do anything about it because it’s seen as ‘part of the role’.

There is a massive difference between ‘knowing what you’re getting into’ as a newly qualified nurse and treating them with disrespect, running them into the ground and expecting them to be ok with not having their basic needs met for the needs of the general public.

The nurses wages do not reflect their working conditions or the trauma they experience and have to heal from. They are human and grieve for their patients too. They don’t reflect that this a vocation requiring a degree. That nurses don’t just ‘make beds’, they insert tubes down peoples throats to breathe for them, take chest drains out, keep people alive with complex concoctions of medications they’ve mixed. And so much more.

The NHS has relied on the generosity of its nurses and assistant staff for too long. That generosity is wearing out. What we are being put through isn’t worth our wages anymore.

Stop advertising nurses as heroes and force the public and parliament to see us as the humans we are.

[katurdayss]

3 potentially 4 union strikes in what 6 months? Here. for . it.

There needs to be a balance between unions and corporations but honestly? Given that the U.S has a lackluster social safety net and Republicans want to gut those even more, unions fighting for workers to have fair compensation/ benefits to fit today's living expenses is extremely important.

[tranarchristian]

Share and attend if possible!!

[allthecanadianpolitics]

The sounds of honking, chanting and cheering can be heard along North Park Street in Belleville, Ont., which is par for the course these past few weeks as public health nurses have been picketing outside the Hastings Prince Edward Public Health office for over a month.

But today, they received some backup. CUPE-represented health unit employees joined them on the picket lines after rejecting the health unit’s latest contract offer.

“We really thought that going into this negotiation that we would be in a position, that the employer would show us some respect, show our value for everything that we did during the pandemic for the community. and no, we’re not at that point,” Dhannon Del Grosso, vice-president of  CUPE Local 3314, said.

Wages and benefits are the sticking point for both the Ontario Nurses Association and CUPE-represented employees. The CUPE members include dieticians and health inspectors. [...]

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Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[shirogane-oushirou]

[us healthcare bureaucracy vent, with a selfship slant fhfddh]

perk of having ren as a boyfriend: dealing w insurance would be almost as opaque to him as it is to me, but he could at least say,

"wait, so your pcp sent the right [insert specialty here] location to them, but it's 1) the wrong doctor, 2) for a procedure instead of a consultation, 3) sent as an authorization and not a referral? don't bother spending all afternoon calling all of these specialty doctors, just message your pcp and ask them to fix it. no, you aren't stupid or paranoid, they fucked it up in almost every way imaginable. yeah you sent them all the correct info on their portal for easy reference, you didn't forget to do that. you're gucci."