Sutter Health and unionized workers announced a tentative contract agreement Saturday, averting a potential strike across the nonprofit health care provider’s Northern California facilities.
“I think the new contract meets what we were looking for,” SEUI-UHW union steward Michael Pineda told this news organization. “It was just a really awesome deal. We were ready to put up the fight if we had to, but I feel like Sutter heard that and said, ‘Let’s invest more into the employee.’”
The union had been negotiating with Sutter Health since July for a new contract, citing short staffing, strenuous work environments and high employee turnover.
Earlier this month, union members at facilities in Oakland, Santa Rosa, Roseville, Berkeley, Lakeport, Vallejo, Antioch, Castro Valley, and San Francisco voted to authorize a strike. However, after another bargaining session, the parties agreed Saturday on a new tentative contract and staved off a strike of over 4,000 workers.
“The parties have negotiated in good faith since July for an agreement that recognizes and rewards employees while supporting our ability to deliver safe, high-quality care,” Sutter Health officials said in a statement Saturday. “We believe the tentative agreements meet those goals.”
SEIU represents nursing assistants, respiratory therapists, licensed vocational nurses, environmental services, cooks, technicians, and others with Sutter Health.
The union previously accused the nonprofit of negotiating in “bad faith,” which Pineda described as “stalling” and “delays” from Sutter Health. But by Saturday, things changed at the negotiating table that put the union at ease enough to approve a tentative agreement.
“Sutter changed their negotiator midway through. In the beginning, there was no movement by the early negotiator. It was a lot of delay tactics and people sitting around waiting for them to come to the table,” Pineda said. “The last month was when we really actually had good dialogue.”
While Sutter Health workers in the region can now breathe a little easier, the tentative agreement comes at the same time tens of thousands of union workers at facilities in California and Hawaii prepare for possibly the largest strike ever against Kaiser Permanente. According to SEIU, some 31,000 workers are prepared to walk off the job at two dozen hospitals this coming Tuesday.
Pineda offered solidarity on Saturday with those workers.
“Our members are always in support with Kaiser (workers) because we’re all the same union. If they’re in a fight, then we’re in a fight,” Pineda said. “We will definitely send members to go and support them at their picket lines, just as they were willing to come to ours if we needed to do a strike.”
In April 2022, thousands of Sutter Health workers walked off the job for a day during contract negotiations, which was followed by another five-day strike in October 2022 by the California Nurses Association and National Nurses United. Sutter Health, in an attempt to keep health care functions running, hired contract workers to fill in.
That same year, millions of plaintiffs filed an antitrust class action lawsuit seeking over $1 billion in damages that alleged Sutter Health overcharged customers and companies for health care bills and discouraged clients from using other lower-cost services. The health care provider agreed earlier this year to settle the case for $228.5 million.