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Kaiser Permanente said Wednesday it reached a tentative agreement on a new four-year contract with unions for 85,000 of the healthcare giant’s workers, averting a potential strike planned for next month. The proposed pact includes annual pay increases for the employees, preserves their defined-benefit pension plan and establishes a program to reduce a shortage of healthcare workers, Kaiser said. Oakland-based Kaiser did not specify the size of the pay hikes, but they are “strong across-the-board raises of 3% a year,” according to a statement by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West local, which represents workers in Southern California and is among the 11 union locals involved. (Peltz, 9/25)

The contract specifies that a $130 million workforce development program will provide thousands of workers with free education to help fill an expected shortage of hundreds of thousands of health care jobs, the union group said Wednesday. ... The contract also bans outsourcing jobs in certain areas — including revenue collection, call centers, pharmacy, laboratory and housekeeping — for the life of the contract. (Moench, 9/25)

Labor relations expert Rebecca Kolins Givan said that, although the coalition had a number of victories with this contract, the terms on outsourcing are perhaps the biggest win. “Outsourcing...tends to be the way that employers degrade the quality of the work, move work outside the bargaining unit to workers who don’t have the same protections and wages,” said Givan, an associate professor at the Center for Work and Health at New Jersey’s Rutgers University. “I think protecting against subcontracting is actually a really significant win, especially given how health-care employers tend to operate in the current landscape.” (Anderson, 9/25)

If ratified, the contract will go into effect on Oct. 1, 2019, and will cover many of Kaiser Permanente's workers in California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Maryland, Virginia, Hawaii and Washington, D.C. (Klivans, 9/25)

Kaiser Permanente officials said the agreement reached demonstrates its commitment to the labor force although the system is no stranger to divisive labor negotiations with unions. "We may disagree at times (with the labor force), but we have always been able to work through our challenges to align on common goals," said Arlene Peasnall, interim chief human resources officer at Kaiser, in a statement. (Castellucci, 9/25)