Days 5 & 6 of 2010 National Bargaining

April 21, 2010 & April 22, 2010

The National Agreement is an amazing document. Our Partnership with management, although significantly lacking in some areas, is preeminent in laying out the groundwork for a strategic business plan to advance Kaiser and engage labor at every level.
Yet, does management partner with management?
We as labor, pride ourselves in our caucuses where all may have a voice and be heard.
We as labor do not speak for all of labor, prior to having these caucuses.
Only then do we put our collective bargaining choices to the membership for a vote.
Management on the other hand does not seem to take breaks during bargaining to talk to each other about each others opinions.
One Management leader talks for most of management.
That is traditional bargaining as opposed to interest based bargaining.
They strive, during bargaining, to hear labor; yet they do not seem to strive to hear one another.
How can they truly partner with labor if they are not treated as partners themselves, by each other?
Labor expects, and at times, demands, partnering behaviors from our managers on the front line. These managers, in turn, do not seem to engage in partnering relationships with their peers or with the managers above them. Their management structure is still based on the old Military model.

How crazy is this?

On April 21 & 22, in my Labor Management Partnership Common Issues Committee (LMP/CIC)we spent a lot of time discussing what management described as, the “Middles,” who are the front line managers, middle managers, and physicians.
These “Middles” were identified as the group most in need of increased education on Union literacy, Contract literacy, Partnership Behaviors and the National Agreement.
These “Middles” were also identified as the least accountable in their LMP behaviors.

It strikes me as incredibly ironic that our bargaining team (labor and management)has identified, this "Middle" Kaiser demographic, as a significant barrier to the success of the Partnership. These "Middles" are those who are the least partnered with, by each other or by their senior leadership. Who from management is modeling partnership behaviors for them?

Of course I am being presumptuous.
The word, "scapegoat" comes to mind.
That being said, these "Middles" do need to be held accountable to the LMP, continuously, and supported towards that end.

On April 21st, we as labor, jointly,spent time brainstorming through all of our previous interests, and agreed on a condensed list of our options:

*Make the Partnership Better
Jointly develop and implement the following annual (or?)trainings:
The "Partnership" business plan for educating the "middles"/timeline and accountability's--the Partnership is not an option
Curriculum on business literacy for labor
Curriculum on union literacy for management
Curriculum on contract literacy for management provided jointly by labor and management (not just at the Masses meetings)
Metrics for accountability -- a way of measuring if management is partnering.
Curriculum for contract literacy--mandatory/annual compliance trainings for managers on the partnership

*Position Partnership for future success and provide job security:
More funding from Kaiser
Jointly research how to deliver high quality health care
Jointly work on the infrastructure to advance the KP model externally
Work together through public policy to counter the health care systems that are not providing quality health care and are ripping off the public and the system.
Jointly create goals, benchmarks, and Metrics
Work together to capture the 32 million Americans who will soon be eligible for health care.
Adequate partnership funding

*Grow the Union Membership:
Beef up the neutrality provisions of the National Agreement.
Accrete LMP positions doing bargaining unit work.
Guarantee Union leave time off for the purpose of organizing Union eligible KP positions.

*Jointly establish goals/benchmarks for high performing UBT's over the term of the new contract.

*Incorporate the a high level of commitment into the National Agreement such as having the it signed by Kaiser, Coalition and Union leaders.

*Interest Based Bargaining at all levels with facilitation provided for all sessions by OLMP.
Timeline for decisions on grievances (with penalty).
Union delegated partner for each manager.
LMP activity at the local level is funded by the business.

We presented our list to management. They were impressed, as we had concrete, documented examples of how to achieve our goals.

End of Day 5.

On April 22, we waited for management to present their options.
And we waited, and we waited.
They arrived at 11:50.
They were happy and bubbly.
They responded to our options by saying that the level of alignment in what we(labor and management) want to do is strong, real and concrete.
Then they proceeded to be non-committal on all suggestions aside from those already in the National Agreement.
Why is it that the themes I keep hearing from management, at every level of bargaining is that they don’t think that they have enough of the right information they need to make decisions, they may not have the right people in the room, and that they are not sure if, “this bargaining forum” is the right place to be discussing and deciding on the issues labor is bringing up?

It’s easy to talk about strengthening, fixing and making better what already is.
It isn't easy talking about doing business differently so we can continue to strengthening, fix and making better what already is.

We want to expand the partnership because we want to help Kaiser capture the market of the 32 million Americans who will soon be eligible for health care.
There is no reason why we cannot work on both our internal partnership challenges while at the same time helping Kaiser grow the membership.

Management then presented their options:
* They need to be able to rely on and move forward on decisions made with their union partners.
* They want to work together to enhance flexibility.
* They want to share and adopt best practices relative to quality, service, affordability and best place to work to better serve our patient and members.

Hum…"flexibility," the, “f” word. A code word for management wanting us to allow them the, “flexibility” to violate the contract to suit their operational needs. We, as labor, know this is unacceptable, and have already voiced such. Yet, flexibility language does exist in the National Agreement. Thus,this should provide a colorful context when resuming negotiations at our next bargaining session.

End of Day 6.

In Unity, Rachelle