Day 4 of 2010 National Bargaining

April 20, 2010

Brothers and Sisters,

Even for a Social Worker, sometimes going through a known process is very difficult. Interest Based Bargaining is a process which requires patience, stamina and the ability to keep focused on our objectives:

Raises, no take-aways, and job security.

Today in the LMP Common Issues Committee labor and management shared interests, asked each other questions to gain a better understanding of each others interests, and looked for and identified commonalities. The idea was not to necessarily gain support for each others interests, but to further develop our relationship through a sense of understanding for these interests. Jumping straight to options and solutions bypasses the opportunity for gaining an understanding of a perspective other than ones own.

And it can also be tedious, boring and at times very frustrating.

We found that we had many interests in common, got hung up on wording and bordered on forgetting that we only disagree with each other in our caucus.

Management gave us a financial presentation on the LMP Trust and educated us on additional the funding of the Partnership and where that funding comes from. Apparently there are three "buckets." The LMP Trust, the Union and Kaiser.

It was very enlightening and yet I felt it wasn't sufficient to labors needs. We could have benefited from further education, or perhaps being given this information sooner.

We learned about the various supportive constructs in place that are designed specifically to grow the Partnership, of the quantitative date that is used to determine success or the need for improvement. I was amazed at number of resources available, and of the programs we fund through the LMP Trust.

Management shared a draft of their vision for the future created out of a recent Kaiser Permanente Leadership Retreat in which they met with leaders from the Permanente Medical Groups, the Kaiser foundation Health Plan, and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions to refine how they will address our challenges and seize opportunities together in partnership. The summary outlined the steps they determined we need to take to actualize their vision and used phrases such as, "We'll demonstrate leadership by turning intentions into action."

Lastly, during our final labor caucus, we decided if we needed more data to facilitate our process.

There were times throughout the day when labor definitely disagreed with each other. Yet we still moved forward. We spoke our minds, got over it, and continue to keep focused: Raises, no take-aways, and job security.

In Unity Rachelle