Well, they did it again. We've reported on the numerous strikes called by Big Labor this year, starting with the late spring's Writers Guild of America strike, which just ended last week. But the actions have stretched through what people years from now might call the "hot labor summer of 2023," which included both the ongoing SAG-AFTRA actors union strike and the UAW strike against the Big Three automakers.
Now that we're into the season of fall, the Left just does not stop. The latest union action, which started Wednesday, is against one of the largest employers in the nation's health care industry, Kaiser Permanente:
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Some 75,000 Kaiser Permanente workers walked off the job Wednesday in multiple states, kicking off a major health care strike in an extraordinary year for U.S. labor organizing and work stoppages.
Kaiser Permanente is one of the country’s larger insurers and health care system operators, serving nearly 13 million people. The nonprofit company, based in Oakland, California, said its 39 hospitals, including emergency rooms, will remain open during the picketing, though appointments and non-urgent procedures could be delayed.
The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, representing about 85,000 of the health system’s employees nationally, approved a strike for three days in California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington, and for one day in Virginia and Washington, D.C.
Here are the medical industry professions impacted by the walk-out:
Early Wednesday, workers at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center cheered as the strike deadline arrived. The strikers include licensed vocational nurses, home health aides and ultrasound sonographers, as well as technicians in the radiology, X-ray, surgical, pharmacy and emergency departments. [...]
Doctors are not participating in the strike, and Kaiser said it was bringing in thousands of temporary workers.
The unions in the Kaiser Permanente strike are demanding "a $25 hourly minimum wage, as well as increases of 7% each year in the first two years and 6.25% each year in the two years afterward."
Actually, this wasn't the first health care strike in 2023 -- 7,000 nurses in New York went on a three-day strike in January:
Union leaders say the tentative contract agreement ending the strike by nurses at Mount Sinai Hospital and Montefiore Medical Center, each privately owned, nonprofit hospitals that hold over 1,000 beds in New York City, will relieve chronic short staffing and boost pay by 19% over three years.
We'll keep you posted on further developments in the story.
Related:
'Oppenheimer' Director Nolan Says He Won't Make Any New Movies While Hollywood Strike Is On
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