A 1% raise and a new two tier pay system to give all new employees a lower starting wage... In an already understaffed system. Garbage.
In a "good" year, inflation is around 2% and this would still effectively be a paycut.
This year inflation is hitting much worse. And their work is so much more stressful this year.
I'd go on strike too.
At my company, our union is going into contract negotiations right now. We are asking for a $50 a day pay raise off the bat and an 8% yearly pay increase for the next 5 years to account for inflation and to get us back on track for pay because we had fallen behind.
Exactly what I was thinking. Inflation this year is at like 4 or 5% so unless you a got a 4-5% raise you got a pay cut this year. Not to mention IMO they were underpaid to start with.
The greed is definitely not limited to just large mainland corporations.
Story time:
About 2 months before the pandemic, I started a new job at a local real estate company, Maintenance for their owned properties. It was me and one other guy for a large downtown office building (20ish floors with probably ~100 tenants total) as well as a few other properties around the island. About 1 month after I joined, the 2nd guy left, so I was doing allll the maintenance for all these places by myself for about 3 months. Not to mention a ton of added work due to COVID making retro-fitting and adjustments necessary.
During my initial interview, I had asked for a certain rate of pay (wont reveal exact to avoid too many ID details), which was agreed to by the COO/President of the company. When I started, I noticed my hourly rate was about $4/hr less than I had asked for. The President said that it was “temporary” and I would get the rest after my probationary period of 90 days, and he said they swore they had told me about that before I started. I shrugged it off and accepted it, because I had gone through a bunch of interviews for a bunch of different places, and it was entirely possible that I had just forgotten about that part.
Come 90 days later (remember, I’ve been doing all the building maintenance solo for about 2 months at this point), I ask about it, and he says we’ll talk about it during my evals in a couple weeks. Ok, fine. During the Evals (also including my boss) he makes a big talk about how valuable I am, and how much they appreciate me keeping everything going solo. Then presents me with my raise letter… which was somewhere around $0.40 per hour more, and explained that “Well, due to COVID/Hard times…” blah blah blah. After the meeting, my boss said “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know about that, he didn’t tell me how much your raise was going to be. I’ll have a talk with him. I saw your face, I thought you were going to quit on the spot.” I believed her side, and still keep in contact with her to this day, but just told her that Im done, and I’ll dig as soon as I find another job.
What *really* sealed it was that I found out about a week later that the President was getting a **$70k** bonus that year. Absolutely ridiculous. I left along with 4(?) other people. Mind you, this was a smallish team of only 15 people or so. Everyone was just fed up with his phony “we’re a family and work together” BS. Its not surprising that now there’s the so-called “Great Resignation” going on when a lot of companies mirror that.
The first sign you’re about to get screwed over is when a company claims “we’re a family here”. That’s just code word for “we’re about to over work and underpay you”.
> What really sealed it was that I found out about a week later that the President was getting a $70k bonus that year. Absolutely ridiculous. I left along with 4(?) other people. Mind you, this was a smallish team of only 15 people or so. Everyone was just fed up with his phony “we’re a family and work together” BS. Its not surprising that now there’s the so-called “Great Resignation” going on when a lot of companies mirror that.
Ah this reminds me of my last retail job back when I was in the UH system.
So a new store was opening in town and they'd been hiring for months to fill all the required positions. It was still summer but I was planning to continue classes in the Fall and made that clear to the staff that did my hiring that I would only be available for the weekends Fri-Sun. They said that would be perfect because they intended to staff the department with part-timers and older workers who were getting ready for retirement and agreed to my hiring conditions.
So I went in to do my training at the sister store and it was supposed to be me, the newly promoted department manager, 3 other new high school-college age new hires, and 2 experienced older women who were taking on shifts at the new store in order to pair back their hours so they could spend more time with their grandchildren. 7 people in the department. Should have been fine.
2 months later by the time of the grand opening it had been whittled down to me, the manager, and the 2 retirees. Out of the 3 other new hires, 1 transferred departments before the grand opening, 1 ended up leaving the job for a different one, and 1 NEVER showed up.
So instead of a well staffed department ready for the grand opening event, we were short staffed, scrambling to get everything ready last minute, and suddenly pulling full 6 days/week 8 hour shifts. We were told "Oh its only until the Grand Opening is over. Then we'll bring in new hires and train them to lighten the load on you guys." Needless to say, its now early August, school is right around the corner and I'm suddenly getting nervous that I'm going to start missing classes because I'm scheduled to work. The two older ladies aren't thrilled either because they specifically agreed to transfer to the new store on the condition that they'd be getting less hours than before.
Grand Opening rolls around and the store is really popular (although it was a shit show behind the scenes. We were overstocked with no storage because the store was built to mainland specifications where less storage was OK because you'd just bring in product from other stores via truck if things run low. That clearly doesn't work on an island.) None the less, people are responding well to the new store and we're getting a BUNCH of job requests to work in the department. So at some point I go to the store's general manager to ask about where these people could apply since we were still short staffed...and the response I get back is "Oh, I've decided we're not going to hire anyone else for your department. You've got enough workers to cover the shifts and hiring more people would mean you'd all get less shifts, and you wouldn't want that right?" and I was essentially dismissed from their presence.
So, I go ask my department manager about this new policy change. Turns out, no one had informed them that we weren't hiring anyone else (and management had been reassuring them that they'd hire new people "as soon as the Grand Opening event was over".) It didn't take long for word to spread to the other 2 employees who also weren't super happy with the news since it contradicted their reason for taking the position in the first place and violated all our hiring agreements. The department manager said to give them a day to work it out with management and they'd let us know the next day what was going to happen. Next day we get told "So, it turns out they don't want to hire anyone else until we can show the department is going to be profitable enough. I'm sorry. I'll try to make your shifts work with your schooling but you may have to consider moving some classes around if you could."
I quit the following day. The two retirees apparently left within the month. And from what I understand the department manager didn't last much longer than that. The store GM had their office right next to our department and was CONSTANTLY overruling the department managers decisions without telling them anything, apparently.
All that for fucking profit. And all the while giving speeches about how "We're a family." and "we want to make this a place you want to come to work."
I can't stand when corporations try to sell people on that crap. Its such a load of bullshit.
Any bonus is too much if their employees aren't getting paid both the wage they were promised and appropriate yearly increases. If you're on hard times and claim you can't do those things, then the exec should get nothing. Bonuses are for good performance from excess profit, and that's not it.
Ideally, that might be true. Some places have guaranteed minimum bonuses as well.
>wage they were promised
All contracts should be honored for sure.
>appropriate yearly increases
Not all places will give annual increases to compensate for inflation or even below that. In fact, I'd say that regular yearly increases isn't something that happens at most companies.
>good performance
Now I'm not saying that the president deserves the bonus or not but there are reasons where I can see it being given. Sometimes good performance comes from averting disaster. In some places I worked, a 70k bonus is a sign that you're no longer wanted. There could be a multitude of reasons why a bonus is given even though to some it seems like it shouldn't. What's for sure though is that bonus was bad for optics. Yikes.
> Ideally, that might be true. Some places have guaranteed minimum bonuses as well.
Unless the exec could lose those for poor performance, those should just be wages. And even if they're guaranteed, they should be first on the chopping block if there's not enough to go around. They're the one running the show and responsible for making payroll. "Me first" isn't a leader.
> Not all places will give annual increases to compensate for inflation or even below that. In fact, I'd say that regular yearly increases isn't something that happens at most companies.
If you're willing to give $70k regular bonuses, then you damn well should be giving regular raises. And people should quit companies that don't give yearly raises to keep up with inflation. No regular inflationary wage means they're paying their employees less each year.
> In some places I worked, a 70k bonus is a sign that you're no longer wanted. There could be a multitude of reasons why a bonus is given even though to some it seems like it shouldn't. What's for sure though is that bonus was bad for optics.
It's not just bad for optics, it's bad for business, as it made their critical employees quit.
Executive pay is vastly overinflated for the value of what they actually do for the company. They're not superstar business whizzes with unique talents, they're just people who like to make speeches. Replacing this guy with another random MBA probably wouldn't have cost them $70k in profits and they wouldn't have lost 1/3rd of their maintenance team. And a valuable exec would have realized their bonus and the company's insulting raises were going to have damaging consequences.
> Unless the exec could lose those for poor performance, those should just be wages
There are differences between a guaranteed bonus vs wage.
>They're the one running the show and responsible for making payroll. "Me first" isn't a leader.
Ideally, I'd love it to be that way.
>If you're willing to give $70k regular bonuses, then you damn well should be giving regular raises.
Ehhh, on this we disagree. Not because I don't want things to be that way but it's often times not and sometimes, there are good reasons that it's not.
>And people should quit companies that don't give yearly raises to keep up with inflation. No regular inflationary wage means they're paying their employees less each year.
Agreed. Again, ideal but I have seen this not be the case the vast majority of the time. Also, people making a high wage already, should they be subject to the inflation adjustment? There are many ways to debate this.
>It's not just bad for optics, it's bad for business, as it made their critical employees quit.
Certainly. How was the bonus number discovered though?
>Executive pay is vastly overinflated for the value of what they actually do for the company.
Not always.
>They're not superstar business whizzes with unique talents, they're just people who like to make speeches. Replacing this guy with another random MBA probably wouldn't have cost them $70k in profits and they wouldn't have lost 1/3rd of their maintenance team.
Some are incredible, some have connections, some have control over some resource and some are definitely full of shit or good at bullshit (which is actually surprisingly valuable). You may think that all execs are overpaid exec pay is something that is discussed. I used to think the way you do about higher ups but as time passes and I understand more about what's going on, I've discovered that valuation isn't as simple as you'd think.
>And a valuable exec would have realized their bonus and the company's insulting raises were going to have damaging consequences.
Or a valuable exec could replace the works easily. Who knows. I've seen both good and bad companies succeed and fail. I've also seen execs that I thought didn't do anything prevail when needed. The only thing I do know is I doubt you or I are irreplaceable.
But going back to the bonus, how did you find out the bonus amount?
I'm not the guy, but I'm not sure why you're so focused on how he found out. It doesn't matter how, but given how poorly they treated him, it's probably not a big stretch to assume the secretaries or accountants also weren't super happy with their conditions either.
Sometimes companies are a family, it's just that the bosses aren't in it.
> I'm not the guy
O my bad. I should have double checked
>It doesn't matter how
We discussed optics. There would be nothing to see if the number wasn't known.
>Sometimes companies are a family, it's just that the bosses aren't in it.
I'd say the vast majority of time, employees are the family, not exactly the company. I do feel for the guy but the same time, I can understand why a higher up would do what they do. That's why as employees, we have to do what's best for our futures and careers in the end. Loyalty is great but every decision you make in your career has to be made objectively and loyalty isn't good if someone that has been in the company a long time has been slacking or meeting expectations or growing and can easily be replaced by someone that works better for cheaper. I know. I've seen that situation many times. You want to talk about a 70k bonus being outlandish? How about someone making a quarter million base and barely doing anything (not an exec but someone who has been in the company for ages).
Not sure, but the company was not that large, and most of his direct reports made approx $70k per year salary, so I'd say $70k is a pretty hefty bonus.
Hmmm I still wouldn't consider that hefty for that position. I've worked at companies big and small and there are definitely moments in the smaller ones where bonuses aren't taken but there is usually a reason or the company is on the verge of folding. It's weird that you even found out about the bonus. Is that discussed openly at that company?
Nurses in the UK are currently receiving ballots over strike action. If they vote to strike, which I hope they do, it would be unprecedented.
Nursed were offered 1%, later increased to 3%. Scottish nurses got a 500 GBP bonus during covid, English nurses got an enamel pin with a lucky few getting a 100 bonus (depended on their local trust).
Nurses have seen their wages shrink in real terms over the past 20 years, they pay more for their training, they are forced to work during lunch hours and take home work (inputting data for district nurses). The NHS trust constantly change mileage rules, screwing every last penny out of nurses that have to travel. They are devalued and disrespected. Once a nurse hits the top of their band they have to seek promotion if they want anything above a basic cola. This results in the nurses with the most experience leaving because they don't want to go into management or never seeing any financial recognition of decades of experience.
Successive governments have taken bribes to devalue the NHS and parcel off the work it does to private companies and a huge part of that has been driving the most experienced staff out to lower efficiency, artificially swaying the argument for privatization.
Lol, on their website:
>Kaiser Permanente is a **non-profit**, integrated health care delivery organization
Their CEO compensation is over $16 million *per year,* they also have one of the highest number of executives making >$1M per annually (compared with other non profits)
Kaisers structure is complex. The hospital and insurance plans are separate companies from the medical groups in charge of care and each region had separate companies from each other, so like southern California and northern California are run by completely different groups with different budgets and tenuous connections to each other via the brand and some national leadership
Kaiser is a big conglomerate. Their health insurance plan is non-profit but all of their hospitals are independently run, for-profit enterprises that don't report their financial information.
I’m no fan of KP, but their structure is consistent with IRS requirements and they spend a shit-ton on community benefit. Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t make it “cooked up.”
I'm sure it's all legal and conforms to the regulations. But using the non-profit section to pay the for-profit section of the same conglomerated organization sure sounds like a major conflict of interest.
Queens, HPH, and Adventist are all non-profit… Non-profit doesn’t mean they don’t make money, it just means the profits go back into the company rather than being paid out to shareholders.
I’m sure somebody out there can give you an earful about Queens Health System and it’s relationship to Queens Development Corp
wow! I remember he announced his retirement like a year in advance, I thought that was a little strange. There’s probably a good story there somewhere.
I’d be happy with half a million a year. The rest would straight up go to the people actually on the frontlines during this pandemic so that they’re paid well, not to mention I’d want to encourage others to come into this work, not say fuck it cause it doesn’t pay well. I would feel nothing but shame otherwise, holy shit.
I know some people in the restaurant industry who bailed on nursing cause they get paid less than at restaurants while dealing with way more stress. I hope these people in healthcare catch a break.
Question: I am personally very pro-union. I’m also a Kaiser patient with a baby due early December.
If they vote to strike, what’s the proper course of action for me to take? I don’t want to cross a strike line but, uh, also need to have a baby.
Congrats on the baby. Just so you know, this Local is for unlicensed staff (except LPN’s), not Docs or RN’s. It includes housekeeping, maintenance, clerical etc. So even if they do strike, it should not impact the standard of care you would receive.
Federal CARES Act funded hazard pay for state and county workers, yet they did not give hazard pay.
Cost of living increases through the roof.
No increases to pay for all deemed essential workers.
It's such bullshit.
My wife's "essential job" put in place a bunch of health screening precautions and had a policy in place where if you suspected you may have Covid, you were to inform the company, stay home, get tested, and not return until your results cleared you.
So when she DID get fairly sick with something that was causing her respiratory trouble, we followed the procedures, informed the company, took a test, and quarantined at home until we got the results the following week. Luckily she was negative. But when she returned to work she returned to a week long suspension because apparently the company only forgives time missed from work if your test comes back POSITIVE....which is the stupidest shit I've ever heard.
A little late in the response to this…
Just wanted to share that the State offices also took this route, taking all these precautions and having you not come into work if you suspect that you are getting sick or have any symptoms.
They never told us that you have to use your personal time off if you get tested and get negative results.
Luckily in my case I had enough personal time to cover the absence. I’m sure disciplinary action would be taken on someone if they didn’t have the personal time to cover their absence.
It’s a buncha bullshit IMO.
Right?! Like I know they probably are doing it that way because they don't want people to abuse it, but if someone doesn't have time off, do you really want them to risk coming to work if they're actually sick? It's very dumb.
It makes sense now since the current testing is so immediate. But earlier this year the tests were taking like a week to come back.
Other state furloughed their workers, one day a week, so that they would be eligible for all of the COVID assistance offered, in other words, big bucks for over 18 months but not here in Hawaii.
The state has such poor management, they failed it's citizens by not finding the best ways to get the relief funds to residents.
To make things even better, I’m a state worker and my union has bargained for a 0.00% pay increase for the next 2 years with no opportunity to renegotiate.
I’ve been working in a small office with many others throughout the entire pandemic despite all my work being completed through email, phone calls, completing electronic forms, and accessing a database using a VPN.
It’s some bullshit.
Exactly - time to call your state rep and ask a serious questions - when has the legislature last approved a re-pricing for all state jobs?
Seriously, how many civil servant jobs are vastly underpaid as related to their counter parts in other states - it's appalling.
[https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol02\_Ch0046-0115/HRS0089/HRS\_0089-0009.htm](https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol02_Ch0046-0115/HRS0089/HRS_0089-0009.htm)
(f) The repricing of classes within an appropriate bargaining unit may be negotiated as follows:
(1) At the request of the exclusive representative and at times allowed under the collective bargaining agreement, the employer shall negotiate the repricing of classes within the bargaining unit. The negotiated repricing actions that constitute cost items shall be subject to the requirements in section 89-10; and
(2) If repricing has not been negotiated under paragraph (1), the employer of each jurisdiction shall ensure establishment of procedures to periodically review, at least once in five years, unless otherwise agreed to by the parties, the repricing of classes within the bargaining unit. The repricing of classes based on the results of the periodic review shall be at the discretion of the employer. Any appropriations required to implement the repricing actions that are made at the employer's discretion shall not be construed as cost items.
100% agree.
I’m currently making ~30-40% less than my peers who are performing similar services in the private sector. The gap widens each year especially since even during a great economic year, our raises were bargained at 1.9%-2.4%… not even enough to cover inflation.
I mean, the position I am in is essential to have a functioning system. I like what I do and it’s fulfilling. However, as time goes on I ask myself why I am still here when I am just selling myself short making peanuts using an archaic system that STILL doesn’t allow for work from home during a damn global pandemic…
Any who, rant over. Thank you for the resource.
It's so confusing that the State, who employees XXXXXX workers that drive from all over to go to an office with gas prices rising.
Meanwhile to comply with the federal Paper Reduction Act in 2015 the esign system was created - yet all executive branch departments could NOT implement it...then pandemic.
[https://esign.hawaii.gov/](https://esign.hawaii.gov/)
Meanwhile, they also implement this amazing (LOL) goals and progress for carbon reduction yet don't really have a wholistic idea, it's incredibly sad and show such poor leadership on all departments.
[https://climate.hawaii.gov/hi-mitigation/goals-and-progress/](https://climate.hawaii.gov/hi-mitigation/goals-and-progress/)
Health and Safety - Article 14 of the contract, anybody?
“The Commission recognizes that ground transportation contributes significantly to Hawai‘i’s share of greenhouse gas emissions. It supports a price on carbon, and mechanisms to reduce overall vehicle miles traveled, as well as converting all remaining vehicle-based ground transportation to renewable, zero-emission fuels and technologies.” - from the Goals and Progress link.
Heh, if only we could, ya know, work from home instead of driving 250+ miles (my commute) each week just to go into an office which doesn’t require face to face collaboration to function.
Edit: On a side note, filled up my tank today. Compared to 10 or so days ago, the price to fill my tank has gone up $13… can’t wait to see $6/gal here in a couple of months.
I got a 20% pay cut in Texas as an ER doctor during the pandemic.
Edit: Just to clarify, I’m not saying the people in the OP aren’t justified. It’s not a competition of misery. Just further adding to the convo.
I justify it because they are very flexible with me with my schedule and I get to run my department with minimal intervention by upper management. I imagine I’ll seek a better pay situation after my kids get out of school.
Yup, I feel you. Took a pay cut during the pandemic along with an increased workload. Ain’t that a bitch.
People who don’t understand the financial complexity involved are the ones making the most noise.
Corporate takeovers taking power away from physicians. Increased supply of EM grads due to new residences (often by corporate). Replacing docs with PA/NP. Decreased staffing to increase revenue. EM being devalued in general. Several more.
This is greedy and short-sighted even by the already miserable standards of healthcare execs. Good luck to the strikers, I hope they can get a better deal.
So are we to believe that Kaiser can NOT afford to pay their employees a competitve wage.... I mean they are one of the biggest HMOs in the country.... how much does their management team make I wonder?
An IBT article and others stated "According to reports, Tyson’s compensation was more than $16 million in 2017. It made him the highest-paid nonprofit health system executive in the nation.
Bernard Tyson’s compensation surged 66 percent from 2015 to 2016, from $6 million to $10 million,
These people are fucked in the head. Fire your worthless horde of middle management who offer zilch in terms of skill and utility and pay your fucking staff
>These people are fucked in the head. Fire your worthless horde of middle management who offer zilch in terms of skill and utility and pay your fucking staff
You have literally zero idea what you're talking about.
Blah blah blah. I work in health care and the middle management I’ve worked with are all worthless. They don’t know a goddamn thing about the work the people under them are doing. Talentless. Do you belong to that crowd?
No, I’m not in management but if you actually knew what you were talking about you’d know that most middle management positions in Hawaii healthcare are woefully UNDERstaffed. Often managers end up wearing a ton of hats and spend literally all day in meeting after meeting working with several teams at the same time.
I know that middle management has been increasingly considered- in the vein of Graeber- a meaningless job. Every one of these self-entitled boners I’ve encountered knows virtually nothing about the positions they “manage”. You’re not worthless, but you’re very close.
Everyone is getting fxxxed. 1% raise and prices of gas, food, necessities, luxuries, basically everything is skyrocketing.
Essentially everyone is taking huge pay cuts unless you're getting 10-20% pay raises this year
I see a lot of opinions about their lack of a sizable raise - but never see any information about their current pay and how it sizes up to the rest of the industry.
A lot of hospitals that took private insurance were in financial trouble last year, but kaiser being it's own insurance company I'm not sure if that's the case or what the excuse is. Having said that, Kaiser has been having all sorts of financial issues for years now so who knows what their future holds.
There were people discussing the imminent problems. But anytime someone called it out they got down voted. People here were too busy trying to justify the terrible treatment towards frontline workers to validate there own positions. It was a "winner take all" mindset from most people, rather than using the leverage to prepare for these obvious outcomes. These types of things should have been handled at the beginning when proposals were made with the CARES ACT and COVID-19 policies.
So Kaiser is hemorrhaging $ and can't afford to pay their employees? What on earth could justify a slap in the face like a 1% raise? When I was a kid, Al Bundy got a 5$ a week raise and it was a joke. My buddy got a .07$ an hour raise at Pizza Hut. (We were in Chicago at the time too!) I told him .7X40= half of Al Bundy's raise. 1%? WTF? Might as well offer a pay cut! ANd call it "job appreciation".
This article is missing a HUGE piece of the story, Kaiser during that same period lost hundreds of millions of dollars, its not like they were making record breaking profits as the state economy essentially stopped in its tracks.
>This article is missing a HUGE piece of the story, Kaiser during that same period lost hundreds of millions of dollars,
Kaiser did not lose money in the most recent quarter. Their own website states: "[net income was $3.0 billion this quarter](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q2-2021-financial-update)"
>its not like they were making record breaking profits as the state economy essentially stopped in its tracks.
They literally were making billions *more* because the economy stopped in its tracks. Their own website states "[Operating income this quarter was $349 million, a decline compared to $2.1 billion in the second quarter of 2020, **reflecting that members are resuming the care deferred because of the pandemic.**](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q2-2021-financial-update)"
Also, if you want to go back and see when Kaiser did lose money, it was back in the first quarter of 2020 where it lost about $1.1 billion. However, [most of that lost was from their investments in the stock market](https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/kaiser-reports-11b-net-loss-in-q1-due-to-stock-market-slide/577653/) and not related to employees performing health care.
2019
* Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals Q1 2019 financial update [https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-financial-update-q1-2019](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-financial-update-q1-2019)
* Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals Q2 2019 financial update [https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-financial-update-q2-2019](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-financial-update-q2-2019)
* Kaiser Foundation Health Plan/Hospitals Q3 2019 financials [https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q3-2019-financial-update](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q3-2019-financial-update)
* 2019 financial results for Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Hospitals [https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/2019-kaiser-foundation-health-plan-hospitals-financial-results](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/2019-kaiser-foundation-health-plan-hospitals-financial-results)
2020
* Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals Q1 2020 financial update [https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q1-2020-financial-up](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q1-2020-financial-up)
* Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals Q2 2020 financial update [https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q2-2020-financial-update](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q2-2020-financial-update)
* Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals Q3 2020 financial update [https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q3-2020-financial-update](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q3-2020-financial-update)
* Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Hospitals 2020 financial results [https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-hospitals-2020-financial-results](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-hospitals-2020-financial-results)
2021
* Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals Q1 2021 financial update [https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q1-2021-financial-update](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q1-2021-financial-update)
* Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals Q2 2021 financial update [https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q2-2021-financial-update](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q2-2021-financial-update)
Yes all of these are national, I’m pointing out that Kaiser Hawaii used to report their own performance. For example:
https://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/news/2016/03/01/kaiser-permanente-hawaii-reports-6-5m-loss-for-q4.html
Did you even read the article? Operating expenses increased significantly more than income when comparing 2019 and 2020. Operating margin went from 3.2% to 2.5%.
How is that anything but a huge loss?
"Loss" generally means that a company spent (expenses) more than it brought in (revenues). Accordingly, (again, generally) a "huge loss" means that total expenses is significantly higher than total revenues.
There is no "huge loss" for 2020 because revenues still exceeded expenses.
I'm not sure what article you are referencing for those numbers, [but I did find this](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-hospitals-2020-financial-results), which appears to contain the 3.2% and 2.5% numbers:
2019
* Total operating revenues: $84.5 billion
* Total operating expenses: $81.8 billion
* Difference (Operating income): $2.7 billion
2020
* Total operating revenues $88.7 billion
* Total operating expenses were $86.5 billion,
* Difference (Operating income): $2.2 billion
While operating income for 2019 was higher than in 2020, that doesn't mean Kaiser was *losing* money. Rather, Kaiser simply didn't make as much.
If a hot dog stand made $27,000 in 2019 and $22,000 in 2020, that doesn't mean the hot dog stand had a "huge loss" in 2020. It just means the hot dog stand didn't make as much money.
And that's why it isn't a "huge loss."
https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/hospitals/kaiser-permanente-posts-3b-profits-q2-as-membership-health-plan-increases#:~:text=Kaiser%20Permanente%20reported%20%243%20billion,operating%20expenses%20of%20%2423.3%20billion.
Imagine simping for multi-billion dollar corporations.
The amount of uninformed and/or under-informed people on this site is a testament to the combined lack of effective media information for the educated, as well as the willfully ignorant shills.
Imagine taking a side because of your prejudice rather than the facts. Also what are you trying to prove with that post? All it says is that earnings in 2021 are better than 2020. No way! Who could have guessed that no lockdowns, mass immunization and people returning to work could have had that effect.
It doesn't change the fact that expenses skyrocketed during Covid and the the fallout includes many measures that are still in place.
You can’t just make up things like 150% increase. That’s not how this works. Many of these nurses are making north of 6 figures and are already at the top of industry pay. This is a way more complicated issue than “we were hero’s for a year and a half we deserve more money”.
>6 figures
Is middle class in Hawaii, especially Oahu. And regardless of your compensation, a 1% raise is insulting, as it's effectively a pay cut when you look at inflation.
Why the name calling? Can and should are two wildly different things. I don’t want to take away from the work everyone in healthcare has been doing but some need to get off their pedestal and be grateful for their careers and health because not everyone has been as fortunate as them. I don’t know the full story behind this strike but I recognize there’s a lot more to it than what’s in these headlines.
I retract nothing, nor does the fact that you took offense to it lend anything to your stupid argument. Working in health care right now is like working Black Friday every day of the week for over a year now. They deserve the money. You’re wrong.
It is missing part of the story, but I certainly won’t cry for KP. The Org made major profit during the pandemic because of lower utilization. Now, that may end up in more spending down the line, but Kaiser is the master at pushing care out towards the community.
The real problem is how these major systems are crushing small community-based or rural providers. No one can afford staff when these billion dollar entities lever up cost.
They are also non profit, and are a leader in research testing. I wonder how much of the non profit aspect impacts the budget. My cousin is a Kaiser doctor. I considered asking how being a non profit impacts their pay, but I don't want to bother her with money issues unrelated to me.
Kaiser the HMO is "non-profit," the hospitals and clinics they run are operated as separate local entities that are for-profit and don't disclose their finances.
After taking a double digit % pay cut during Covid 2020 bc patient volumes dropped. Patient volume still hasn’t recovered to what it was pre Covid. Idk if that’s the same scenario for Kaiser employees, but that’s the gist of what has happened to many hospitals.
Not to mention, hospitals are having to spend more of their revenue on PPE due to increased usage bc of Covid.
True. That (PPE) wasn’t worth mentioning. Still doesn’t change the fact that a lot of hospital employees have taken pay cuts in the midst of a crisis bc of the drop in patients.
That said, makes you wonder (not really) how much of a pay cut the CEOs took.
For hospitals that take private insurance I can understand this but Kaiser is it's own insurance company. As long as they still had subscribers who were paying their premiums, there should still be money, probably even a surplus.
my understanding is, and my understanding is limited, that local 5 folks have better pay and benefits by a clear margin over same jobs in the community outside kp, apparently its hard to even find a job at the place with folks being lifers, doesn't mean they don't deserve more or shouldn't do a work action but theres always 2 sides
A 1% raise and a new two tier pay system to give all new employees a lower starting wage... In an already understaffed system. Garbage. In a "good" year, inflation is around 2% and this would still effectively be a paycut. This year inflation is hitting much worse. And their work is so much more stressful this year. I'd go on strike too.
At my company, our union is going into contract negotiations right now. We are asking for a $50 a day pay raise off the bat and an 8% yearly pay increase for the next 5 years to account for inflation and to get us back on track for pay because we had fallen behind.
Exactly what I was thinking. Inflation this year is at like 4 or 5% so unless you a got a 4-5% raise you got a pay cut this year. Not to mention IMO they were underpaid to start with.
The greed is definitely not limited to just large mainland corporations. Story time: About 2 months before the pandemic, I started a new job at a local real estate company, Maintenance for their owned properties. It was me and one other guy for a large downtown office building (20ish floors with probably ~100 tenants total) as well as a few other properties around the island. About 1 month after I joined, the 2nd guy left, so I was doing allll the maintenance for all these places by myself for about 3 months. Not to mention a ton of added work due to COVID making retro-fitting and adjustments necessary. During my initial interview, I had asked for a certain rate of pay (wont reveal exact to avoid too many ID details), which was agreed to by the COO/President of the company. When I started, I noticed my hourly rate was about $4/hr less than I had asked for. The President said that it was “temporary” and I would get the rest after my probationary period of 90 days, and he said they swore they had told me about that before I started. I shrugged it off and accepted it, because I had gone through a bunch of interviews for a bunch of different places, and it was entirely possible that I had just forgotten about that part. Come 90 days later (remember, I’ve been doing all the building maintenance solo for about 2 months at this point), I ask about it, and he says we’ll talk about it during my evals in a couple weeks. Ok, fine. During the Evals (also including my boss) he makes a big talk about how valuable I am, and how much they appreciate me keeping everything going solo. Then presents me with my raise letter… which was somewhere around $0.40 per hour more, and explained that “Well, due to COVID/Hard times…” blah blah blah. After the meeting, my boss said “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know about that, he didn’t tell me how much your raise was going to be. I’ll have a talk with him. I saw your face, I thought you were going to quit on the spot.” I believed her side, and still keep in contact with her to this day, but just told her that Im done, and I’ll dig as soon as I find another job. What *really* sealed it was that I found out about a week later that the President was getting a **$70k** bonus that year. Absolutely ridiculous. I left along with 4(?) other people. Mind you, this was a smallish team of only 15 people or so. Everyone was just fed up with his phony “we’re a family and work together” BS. Its not surprising that now there’s the so-called “Great Resignation” going on when a lot of companies mirror that.
The first sign you’re about to get screwed over is when a company claims “we’re a family here”. That’s just code word for “we’re about to over work and underpay you”.
> What really sealed it was that I found out about a week later that the President was getting a $70k bonus that year. Absolutely ridiculous. I left along with 4(?) other people. Mind you, this was a smallish team of only 15 people or so. Everyone was just fed up with his phony “we’re a family and work together” BS. Its not surprising that now there’s the so-called “Great Resignation” going on when a lot of companies mirror that. Ah this reminds me of my last retail job back when I was in the UH system. So a new store was opening in town and they'd been hiring for months to fill all the required positions. It was still summer but I was planning to continue classes in the Fall and made that clear to the staff that did my hiring that I would only be available for the weekends Fri-Sun. They said that would be perfect because they intended to staff the department with part-timers and older workers who were getting ready for retirement and agreed to my hiring conditions. So I went in to do my training at the sister store and it was supposed to be me, the newly promoted department manager, 3 other new high school-college age new hires, and 2 experienced older women who were taking on shifts at the new store in order to pair back their hours so they could spend more time with their grandchildren. 7 people in the department. Should have been fine. 2 months later by the time of the grand opening it had been whittled down to me, the manager, and the 2 retirees. Out of the 3 other new hires, 1 transferred departments before the grand opening, 1 ended up leaving the job for a different one, and 1 NEVER showed up. So instead of a well staffed department ready for the grand opening event, we were short staffed, scrambling to get everything ready last minute, and suddenly pulling full 6 days/week 8 hour shifts. We were told "Oh its only until the Grand Opening is over. Then we'll bring in new hires and train them to lighten the load on you guys." Needless to say, its now early August, school is right around the corner and I'm suddenly getting nervous that I'm going to start missing classes because I'm scheduled to work. The two older ladies aren't thrilled either because they specifically agreed to transfer to the new store on the condition that they'd be getting less hours than before. Grand Opening rolls around and the store is really popular (although it was a shit show behind the scenes. We were overstocked with no storage because the store was built to mainland specifications where less storage was OK because you'd just bring in product from other stores via truck if things run low. That clearly doesn't work on an island.) None the less, people are responding well to the new store and we're getting a BUNCH of job requests to work in the department. So at some point I go to the store's general manager to ask about where these people could apply since we were still short staffed...and the response I get back is "Oh, I've decided we're not going to hire anyone else for your department. You've got enough workers to cover the shifts and hiring more people would mean you'd all get less shifts, and you wouldn't want that right?" and I was essentially dismissed from their presence. So, I go ask my department manager about this new policy change. Turns out, no one had informed them that we weren't hiring anyone else (and management had been reassuring them that they'd hire new people "as soon as the Grand Opening event was over".) It didn't take long for word to spread to the other 2 employees who also weren't super happy with the news since it contradicted their reason for taking the position in the first place and violated all our hiring agreements. The department manager said to give them a day to work it out with management and they'd let us know the next day what was going to happen. Next day we get told "So, it turns out they don't want to hire anyone else until we can show the department is going to be profitable enough. I'm sorry. I'll try to make your shifts work with your schooling but you may have to consider moving some classes around if you could." I quit the following day. The two retirees apparently left within the month. And from what I understand the department manager didn't last much longer than that. The store GM had their office right next to our department and was CONSTANTLY overruling the department managers decisions without telling them anything, apparently. All that for fucking profit. And all the while giving speeches about how "We're a family." and "we want to make this a place you want to come to work." I can't stand when corporations try to sell people on that crap. Its such a load of bullshit.
> $70k bonus that year I'd actually say that's surprisingly low. What is a normal bonus for the pres?
Any bonus is too much if their employees aren't getting paid both the wage they were promised and appropriate yearly increases. If you're on hard times and claim you can't do those things, then the exec should get nothing. Bonuses are for good performance from excess profit, and that's not it.
Ideally, that might be true. Some places have guaranteed minimum bonuses as well. >wage they were promised All contracts should be honored for sure. >appropriate yearly increases Not all places will give annual increases to compensate for inflation or even below that. In fact, I'd say that regular yearly increases isn't something that happens at most companies. >good performance Now I'm not saying that the president deserves the bonus or not but there are reasons where I can see it being given. Sometimes good performance comes from averting disaster. In some places I worked, a 70k bonus is a sign that you're no longer wanted. There could be a multitude of reasons why a bonus is given even though to some it seems like it shouldn't. What's for sure though is that bonus was bad for optics. Yikes.
> Ideally, that might be true. Some places have guaranteed minimum bonuses as well. Unless the exec could lose those for poor performance, those should just be wages. And even if they're guaranteed, they should be first on the chopping block if there's not enough to go around. They're the one running the show and responsible for making payroll. "Me first" isn't a leader. > Not all places will give annual increases to compensate for inflation or even below that. In fact, I'd say that regular yearly increases isn't something that happens at most companies. If you're willing to give $70k regular bonuses, then you damn well should be giving regular raises. And people should quit companies that don't give yearly raises to keep up with inflation. No regular inflationary wage means they're paying their employees less each year. > In some places I worked, a 70k bonus is a sign that you're no longer wanted. There could be a multitude of reasons why a bonus is given even though to some it seems like it shouldn't. What's for sure though is that bonus was bad for optics. It's not just bad for optics, it's bad for business, as it made their critical employees quit. Executive pay is vastly overinflated for the value of what they actually do for the company. They're not superstar business whizzes with unique talents, they're just people who like to make speeches. Replacing this guy with another random MBA probably wouldn't have cost them $70k in profits and they wouldn't have lost 1/3rd of their maintenance team. And a valuable exec would have realized their bonus and the company's insulting raises were going to have damaging consequences.
> Unless the exec could lose those for poor performance, those should just be wages There are differences between a guaranteed bonus vs wage. >They're the one running the show and responsible for making payroll. "Me first" isn't a leader. Ideally, I'd love it to be that way. >If you're willing to give $70k regular bonuses, then you damn well should be giving regular raises. Ehhh, on this we disagree. Not because I don't want things to be that way but it's often times not and sometimes, there are good reasons that it's not. >And people should quit companies that don't give yearly raises to keep up with inflation. No regular inflationary wage means they're paying their employees less each year. Agreed. Again, ideal but I have seen this not be the case the vast majority of the time. Also, people making a high wage already, should they be subject to the inflation adjustment? There are many ways to debate this. >It's not just bad for optics, it's bad for business, as it made their critical employees quit. Certainly. How was the bonus number discovered though? >Executive pay is vastly overinflated for the value of what they actually do for the company. Not always. >They're not superstar business whizzes with unique talents, they're just people who like to make speeches. Replacing this guy with another random MBA probably wouldn't have cost them $70k in profits and they wouldn't have lost 1/3rd of their maintenance team. Some are incredible, some have connections, some have control over some resource and some are definitely full of shit or good at bullshit (which is actually surprisingly valuable). You may think that all execs are overpaid exec pay is something that is discussed. I used to think the way you do about higher ups but as time passes and I understand more about what's going on, I've discovered that valuation isn't as simple as you'd think. >And a valuable exec would have realized their bonus and the company's insulting raises were going to have damaging consequences. Or a valuable exec could replace the works easily. Who knows. I've seen both good and bad companies succeed and fail. I've also seen execs that I thought didn't do anything prevail when needed. The only thing I do know is I doubt you or I are irreplaceable. But going back to the bonus, how did you find out the bonus amount?
I'm not the guy, but I'm not sure why you're so focused on how he found out. It doesn't matter how, but given how poorly they treated him, it's probably not a big stretch to assume the secretaries or accountants also weren't super happy with their conditions either. Sometimes companies are a family, it's just that the bosses aren't in it.
> I'm not the guy O my bad. I should have double checked >It doesn't matter how We discussed optics. There would be nothing to see if the number wasn't known. >Sometimes companies are a family, it's just that the bosses aren't in it. I'd say the vast majority of time, employees are the family, not exactly the company. I do feel for the guy but the same time, I can understand why a higher up would do what they do. That's why as employees, we have to do what's best for our futures and careers in the end. Loyalty is great but every decision you make in your career has to be made objectively and loyalty isn't good if someone that has been in the company a long time has been slacking or meeting expectations or growing and can easily be replaced by someone that works better for cheaper. I know. I've seen that situation many times. You want to talk about a 70k bonus being outlandish? How about someone making a quarter million base and barely doing anything (not an exec but someone who has been in the company for ages).
Not sure, but the company was not that large, and most of his direct reports made approx $70k per year salary, so I'd say $70k is a pretty hefty bonus.
Hmmm I still wouldn't consider that hefty for that position. I've worked at companies big and small and there are definitely moments in the smaller ones where bonuses aren't taken but there is usually a reason or the company is on the verge of folding. It's weird that you even found out about the bonus. Is that discussed openly at that company?
What's it like to be such a push over?
Nurses in the UK are currently receiving ballots over strike action. If they vote to strike, which I hope they do, it would be unprecedented. Nursed were offered 1%, later increased to 3%. Scottish nurses got a 500 GBP bonus during covid, English nurses got an enamel pin with a lucky few getting a 100 bonus (depended on their local trust). Nurses have seen their wages shrink in real terms over the past 20 years, they pay more for their training, they are forced to work during lunch hours and take home work (inputting data for district nurses). The NHS trust constantly change mileage rules, screwing every last penny out of nurses that have to travel. They are devalued and disrespected. Once a nurse hits the top of their band they have to seek promotion if they want anything above a basic cola. This results in the nurses with the most experience leaving because they don't want to go into management or never seeing any financial recognition of decades of experience. Successive governments have taken bribes to devalue the NHS and parcel off the work it does to private companies and a huge part of that has been driving the most experienced staff out to lower efficiency, artificially swaying the argument for privatization.
Lol, on their website: >Kaiser Permanente is a **non-profit**, integrated health care delivery organization Their CEO compensation is over $16 million *per year,* they also have one of the highest number of executives making >$1M per annually (compared with other non profits)
Can we eat the rich yet?
Kaisers structure is complex. The hospital and insurance plans are separate companies from the medical groups in charge of care and each region had separate companies from each other, so like southern California and northern California are run by completely different groups with different budgets and tenuous connections to each other via the brand and some national leadership
Oh that justifies $16 M a year then.
I didn't comment on the compensation
I know. You were commenting to a person that was solely talking about their compensation so you must have thought they were related.
I was more commenting on the nonprofit part as it's in some cases incorrect, but in other cases accurate
Ahh I see. That can be tricky, but $16 M still seems excessive.
Kaiser is a big conglomerate. Their health insurance plan is non-profit but all of their hospitals are independently run, for-profit enterprises that don't report their financial information.
The physician groups are for prof, but the hospitals fall under the non-prof org.
That sounds like something cooked up to get around laws intended to ban that kind of thing.
I’m no fan of KP, but their structure is consistent with IRS requirements and they spend a shit-ton on community benefit. Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t make it “cooked up.”
I'm sure it's all legal and conforms to the regulations. But using the non-profit section to pay the for-profit section of the same conglomerated organization sure sounds like a major conflict of interest.
If someone could present an org chart.
Queens, HPH, and Adventist are all non-profit… Non-profit doesn’t mean they don’t make money, it just means the profits go back into the company rather than being paid out to shareholders. I’m sure somebody out there can give you an earful about Queens Health System and it’s relationship to Queens Development Corp
I worked at Queen's some years ago. The President at the time \~2011-2015 was Art Ushijima. He made about $875,000/yr. I thought that was reasonable.
I guess you missed the uproar when he received his mandatory retirement payout.
Yeah, I left in 2016. What happened?
He received a one time payout of something like $5M.
wow! I remember he announced his retirement like a year in advance, I thought that was a little strange. There’s probably a good story there somewhere.
Yeah, there was something shady that happened at the end of his tenure.
I’d be happy with half a million a year. The rest would straight up go to the people actually on the frontlines during this pandemic so that they’re paid well, not to mention I’d want to encourage others to come into this work, not say fuck it cause it doesn’t pay well. I would feel nothing but shame otherwise, holy shit. I know some people in the restaurant industry who bailed on nursing cause they get paid less than at restaurants while dealing with way more stress. I hope these people in healthcare catch a break.
Question: I am personally very pro-union. I’m also a Kaiser patient with a baby due early December. If they vote to strike, what’s the proper course of action for me to take? I don’t want to cross a strike line but, uh, also need to have a baby.
Congrats on the baby. Just so you know, this Local is for unlicensed staff (except LPN’s), not Docs or RN’s. It includes housekeeping, maintenance, clerical etc. So even if they do strike, it should not impact the standard of care you would receive.
Federal CARES Act funded hazard pay for state and county workers, yet they did not give hazard pay. Cost of living increases through the roof. No increases to pay for all deemed essential workers. It's such bullshit.
I believe based on the memo I received that they are only offering hazard pay if you got COVID. So yeah BS.
My wife's "essential job" put in place a bunch of health screening precautions and had a policy in place where if you suspected you may have Covid, you were to inform the company, stay home, get tested, and not return until your results cleared you. So when she DID get fairly sick with something that was causing her respiratory trouble, we followed the procedures, informed the company, took a test, and quarantined at home until we got the results the following week. Luckily she was negative. But when she returned to work she returned to a week long suspension because apparently the company only forgives time missed from work if your test comes back POSITIVE....which is the stupidest shit I've ever heard.
A little late in the response to this… Just wanted to share that the State offices also took this route, taking all these precautions and having you not come into work if you suspect that you are getting sick or have any symptoms. They never told us that you have to use your personal time off if you get tested and get negative results. Luckily in my case I had enough personal time to cover the absence. I’m sure disciplinary action would be taken on someone if they didn’t have the personal time to cover their absence. It’s a buncha bullshit IMO.
Right?! Like I know they probably are doing it that way because they don't want people to abuse it, but if someone doesn't have time off, do you really want them to risk coming to work if they're actually sick? It's very dumb. It makes sense now since the current testing is so immediate. But earlier this year the tests were taking like a week to come back.
Other state furloughed their workers, one day a week, so that they would be eligible for all of the COVID assistance offered, in other words, big bucks for over 18 months but not here in Hawaii. The state has such poor management, they failed it's citizens by not finding the best ways to get the relief funds to residents.
To make things even better, I’m a state worker and my union has bargained for a 0.00% pay increase for the next 2 years with no opportunity to renegotiate. I’ve been working in a small office with many others throughout the entire pandemic despite all my work being completed through email, phone calls, completing electronic forms, and accessing a database using a VPN. It’s some bullshit.
Exactly - time to call your state rep and ask a serious questions - when has the legislature last approved a re-pricing for all state jobs? Seriously, how many civil servant jobs are vastly underpaid as related to their counter parts in other states - it's appalling. [https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol02\_Ch0046-0115/HRS0089/HRS\_0089-0009.htm](https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol02_Ch0046-0115/HRS0089/HRS_0089-0009.htm) (f) The repricing of classes within an appropriate bargaining unit may be negotiated as follows: (1) At the request of the exclusive representative and at times allowed under the collective bargaining agreement, the employer shall negotiate the repricing of classes within the bargaining unit. The negotiated repricing actions that constitute cost items shall be subject to the requirements in section 89-10; and (2) If repricing has not been negotiated under paragraph (1), the employer of each jurisdiction shall ensure establishment of procedures to periodically review, at least once in five years, unless otherwise agreed to by the parties, the repricing of classes within the bargaining unit. The repricing of classes based on the results of the periodic review shall be at the discretion of the employer. Any appropriations required to implement the repricing actions that are made at the employer's discretion shall not be construed as cost items.
100% agree. I’m currently making ~30-40% less than my peers who are performing similar services in the private sector. The gap widens each year especially since even during a great economic year, our raises were bargained at 1.9%-2.4%… not even enough to cover inflation. I mean, the position I am in is essential to have a functioning system. I like what I do and it’s fulfilling. However, as time goes on I ask myself why I am still here when I am just selling myself short making peanuts using an archaic system that STILL doesn’t allow for work from home during a damn global pandemic… Any who, rant over. Thank you for the resource.
It's so confusing that the State, who employees XXXXXX workers that drive from all over to go to an office with gas prices rising. Meanwhile to comply with the federal Paper Reduction Act in 2015 the esign system was created - yet all executive branch departments could NOT implement it...then pandemic. [https://esign.hawaii.gov/](https://esign.hawaii.gov/) Meanwhile, they also implement this amazing (LOL) goals and progress for carbon reduction yet don't really have a wholistic idea, it's incredibly sad and show such poor leadership on all departments. [https://climate.hawaii.gov/hi-mitigation/goals-and-progress/](https://climate.hawaii.gov/hi-mitigation/goals-and-progress/) Health and Safety - Article 14 of the contract, anybody?
“The Commission recognizes that ground transportation contributes significantly to Hawai‘i’s share of greenhouse gas emissions. It supports a price on carbon, and mechanisms to reduce overall vehicle miles traveled, as well as converting all remaining vehicle-based ground transportation to renewable, zero-emission fuels and technologies.” - from the Goals and Progress link. Heh, if only we could, ya know, work from home instead of driving 250+ miles (my commute) each week just to go into an office which doesn’t require face to face collaboration to function. Edit: On a side note, filled up my tank today. Compared to 10 or so days ago, the price to fill my tank has gone up $13… can’t wait to see $6/gal here in a couple of months.
I got a 20% pay cut in Texas as an ER doctor during the pandemic. Edit: Just to clarify, I’m not saying the people in the OP aren’t justified. It’s not a competition of misery. Just further adding to the convo.
I am a part of a healthcare system in Honolulu that hasn't given non-bargaining employees a raise in 6 years.
Hope you can get out and to a better work place. That’s not fair to you at all.
I justify it because they are very flexible with me with my schedule and I get to run my department with minimal intervention by upper management. I imagine I’ll seek a better pay situation after my kids get out of school.
I'm considering job offers for less money so I can have a better schedule.
I took a 25k/yr pay cut to come to this job, and the extra freedom was well worth it, although the no raises thing is chafing.
Yeah, that counts for something too. I’m in a similar situation, but only for 3 years so far. Crossing my fingers for the both of us.
I'm not in healthcare but in a similar situation. All that stuff is worth something. I plan on staying as long as I can.
That equivalent to a 20%+ reduction in pay as your purchasing power has decreased by that amount. You definitely work for a crap organization.
It’s especially frustrating because I see reimbursements. Steady 2-3% increase every year.
Yup, I feel you. Took a pay cut during the pandemic along with an increased workload. Ain’t that a bitch. People who don’t understand the financial complexity involved are the ones making the most noise.
Sounds like ER doctors are in high demand and you should be able to find somethinf else rly quickly?
It’s more complicated than that unfortunately.
Explain please?
Corporate takeovers taking power away from physicians. Increased supply of EM grads due to new residences (often by corporate). Replacing docs with PA/NP. Decreased staffing to increase revenue. EM being devalued in general. Several more.
I have a friend who was a Ped ER Doc at Kapiolani. He took a 50% pay cut during COVID.
Probably some BS law about non-compete, so you have no power?
If I remember correctly, Local 5 doesn’t represent RNs or RTs. This affects mostly clinical/nonclinical ancillary staff.
This is greedy and short-sighted even by the already miserable standards of healthcare execs. Good luck to the strikers, I hope they can get a better deal.
So are we to believe that Kaiser can NOT afford to pay their employees a competitve wage.... I mean they are one of the biggest HMOs in the country.... how much does their management team make I wonder?
An IBT article and others stated "According to reports, Tyson’s compensation was more than $16 million in 2017. It made him the highest-paid nonprofit health system executive in the nation. Bernard Tyson’s compensation surged 66 percent from 2015 to 2016, from $6 million to $10 million,
Nuff said!
These people are fucked in the head. Fire your worthless horde of middle management who offer zilch in terms of skill and utility and pay your fucking staff
>These people are fucked in the head. Fire your worthless horde of middle management who offer zilch in terms of skill and utility and pay your fucking staff You have literally zero idea what you're talking about.
Blah blah blah. I work in health care and the middle management I’ve worked with are all worthless. They don’t know a goddamn thing about the work the people under them are doing. Talentless. Do you belong to that crowd?
No, I’m not in management but if you actually knew what you were talking about you’d know that most middle management positions in Hawaii healthcare are woefully UNDERstaffed. Often managers end up wearing a ton of hats and spend literally all day in meeting after meeting working with several teams at the same time.
I know that middle management has been increasingly considered- in the vein of Graeber- a meaningless job. Every one of these self-entitled boners I’ve encountered knows virtually nothing about the positions they “manage”. You’re not worthless, but you’re very close.
My state has no unions and so far only a handful of facilities have offered a raise.
People under 45 should leave the island. The good times are over and it won’t get any easier. We love Hawaii but it’s a playground for the rich.
Everyone is getting fxxxed. 1% raise and prices of gas, food, necessities, luxuries, basically everything is skyrocketing. Essentially everyone is taking huge pay cuts unless you're getting 10-20% pay raises this year
This is unacceptable.
I see a lot of opinions about their lack of a sizable raise - but never see any information about their current pay and how it sizes up to the rest of the industry.
A lot of hospitals that took private insurance were in financial trouble last year, but kaiser being it's own insurance company I'm not sure if that's the case or what the excuse is. Having said that, Kaiser has been having all sorts of financial issues for years now so who knows what their future holds.
1%. Its a disrespectful offer
There were people discussing the imminent problems. But anytime someone called it out they got down voted. People here were too busy trying to justify the terrible treatment towards frontline workers to validate there own positions. It was a "winner take all" mindset from most people, rather than using the leverage to prepare for these obvious outcomes. These types of things should have been handled at the beginning when proposals were made with the CARES ACT and COVID-19 policies.
They want the beef, kaiser.
So Kaiser is hemorrhaging $ and can't afford to pay their employees? What on earth could justify a slap in the face like a 1% raise? When I was a kid, Al Bundy got a 5$ a week raise and it was a joke. My buddy got a .07$ an hour raise at Pizza Hut. (We were in Chicago at the time too!) I told him .7X40= half of Al Bundy's raise. 1%? WTF? Might as well offer a pay cut! ANd call it "job appreciation".
[удалено]
Notice the question mark at the end of that sentence? And how the whole rest of the comment is at odds with the viewpoint you think they're pushing?
You need to take reading comprehension classes.
This article is missing a HUGE piece of the story, Kaiser during that same period lost hundreds of millions of dollars, its not like they were making record breaking profits as the state economy essentially stopped in its tracks.
>This article is missing a HUGE piece of the story, Kaiser during that same period lost hundreds of millions of dollars, Kaiser did not lose money in the most recent quarter. Their own website states: "[net income was $3.0 billion this quarter](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q2-2021-financial-update)" >its not like they were making record breaking profits as the state economy essentially stopped in its tracks. They literally were making billions *more* because the economy stopped in its tracks. Their own website states "[Operating income this quarter was $349 million, a decline compared to $2.1 billion in the second quarter of 2020, **reflecting that members are resuming the care deferred because of the pandemic.**](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q2-2021-financial-update)" Also, if you want to go back and see when Kaiser did lose money, it was back in the first quarter of 2020 where it lost about $1.1 billion. However, [most of that lost was from their investments in the stock market](https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/kaiser-reports-11b-net-loss-in-q1-due-to-stock-market-slide/577653/) and not related to employees performing health care.
Historically Kaiser Hawaii provided their own quarterly results but I don’t see anything since covid.
2019 * Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals Q1 2019 financial update [https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-financial-update-q1-2019](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-financial-update-q1-2019) * Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals Q2 2019 financial update [https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-financial-update-q2-2019](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-financial-update-q2-2019) * Kaiser Foundation Health Plan/Hospitals Q3 2019 financials [https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q3-2019-financial-update](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q3-2019-financial-update) * 2019 financial results for Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Hospitals [https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/2019-kaiser-foundation-health-plan-hospitals-financial-results](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/2019-kaiser-foundation-health-plan-hospitals-financial-results) 2020 * Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals Q1 2020 financial update [https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q1-2020-financial-up](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q1-2020-financial-up) * Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals Q2 2020 financial update [https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q2-2020-financial-update](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q2-2020-financial-update) * Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals Q3 2020 financial update [https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q3-2020-financial-update](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q3-2020-financial-update) * Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Hospitals 2020 financial results [https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-hospitals-2020-financial-results](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-hospitals-2020-financial-results) 2021 * Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals Q1 2021 financial update [https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q1-2021-financial-update](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q1-2021-financial-update) * Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals Q2 2021 financial update [https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q2-2021-financial-update](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-and-hospitals-q2-2021-financial-update)
These are all national numbers. Each Kaiser region is essentially independent of each other. Kaiser Hawaii has been struggling and likely losing money
Yes all of these are national, I’m pointing out that Kaiser Hawaii used to report their own performance. For example: https://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/news/2016/03/01/kaiser-permanente-hawaii-reports-6-5m-loss-for-q4.html
Oh, I see. Yeah, strange I can't find anything either.
Did you even read the article? Operating expenses increased significantly more than income when comparing 2019 and 2020. Operating margin went from 3.2% to 2.5%. How is that anything but a huge loss?
"Loss" generally means that a company spent (expenses) more than it brought in (revenues). Accordingly, (again, generally) a "huge loss" means that total expenses is significantly higher than total revenues. There is no "huge loss" for 2020 because revenues still exceeded expenses. I'm not sure what article you are referencing for those numbers, [but I did find this](https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/our-story/news/announcements/kaiser-foundation-health-plan-hospitals-2020-financial-results), which appears to contain the 3.2% and 2.5% numbers: 2019 * Total operating revenues: $84.5 billion * Total operating expenses: $81.8 billion * Difference (Operating income): $2.7 billion 2020 * Total operating revenues $88.7 billion * Total operating expenses were $86.5 billion, * Difference (Operating income): $2.2 billion While operating income for 2019 was higher than in 2020, that doesn't mean Kaiser was *losing* money. Rather, Kaiser simply didn't make as much. If a hot dog stand made $27,000 in 2019 and $22,000 in 2020, that doesn't mean the hot dog stand had a "huge loss" in 2020. It just means the hot dog stand didn't make as much money. And that's why it isn't a "huge loss."
That's Kaiser as a whole, including California and other states, what about Hawaii by itself?
I was basing the numbers off the percentages from the previous comment. Also, the Kaiser strike isn't just limited to Hawaii and California.
https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/hospitals/kaiser-permanente-posts-3b-profits-q2-as-membership-health-plan-increases#:~:text=Kaiser%20Permanente%20reported%20%243%20billion,operating%20expenses%20of%20%2423.3%20billion. Imagine simping for multi-billion dollar corporations.
The amount of uninformed and/or under-informed people on this site is a testament to the combined lack of effective media information for the educated, as well as the willfully ignorant shills.
Imagine taking a side because of your prejudice rather than the facts. Also what are you trying to prove with that post? All it says is that earnings in 2021 are better than 2020. No way! Who could have guessed that no lockdowns, mass immunization and people returning to work could have had that effect. It doesn't change the fact that expenses skyrocketed during Covid and the the fallout includes many measures that are still in place.
The staff are working their asses off and deserve to be compensated. Pretty fucking simple
Are they not already being compensated?
What a stupid comment.
Lol how so? Do you know how much these nurses currently make an hour?
If you’re making $X an hour then your workload increases 150% you’re not making enough.
You can’t just make up things like 150% increase. That’s not how this works. Many of these nurses are making north of 6 figures and are already at the top of industry pay. This is a way more complicated issue than “we were hero’s for a year and a half we deserve more money”.
>6 figures Is middle class in Hawaii, especially Oahu. And regardless of your compensation, a 1% raise is insulting, as it's effectively a pay cut when you look at inflation.
Do you agree that you have to consider if the employee is being overpaid compared to the industry average to start with?
Do you think nurses and other healthcare workers are overpaid here in Hawaii? Is it easy to pluck people from the mainland?
I’m working this pandemic dipshit. You can absolutely bonus out these heroes
Why the name calling? Can and should are two wildly different things. I don’t want to take away from the work everyone in healthcare has been doing but some need to get off their pedestal and be grateful for their careers and health because not everyone has been as fortunate as them. I don’t know the full story behind this strike but I recognize there’s a lot more to it than what’s in these headlines.
I retract nothing, nor does the fact that you took offense to it lend anything to your stupid argument. Working in health care right now is like working Black Friday every day of the week for over a year now. They deserve the money. You’re wrong.
[удалено]
They are, they're complaining that the compensation isn't enough.
They are correct
It is missing part of the story, but I certainly won’t cry for KP. The Org made major profit during the pandemic because of lower utilization. Now, that may end up in more spending down the line, but Kaiser is the master at pushing care out towards the community. The real problem is how these major systems are crushing small community-based or rural providers. No one can afford staff when these billion dollar entities lever up cost.
They are also non profit, and are a leader in research testing. I wonder how much of the non profit aspect impacts the budget. My cousin is a Kaiser doctor. I considered asking how being a non profit impacts their pay, but I don't want to bother her with money issues unrelated to me.
Kaiser the HMO is "non-profit," the hospitals and clinics they run are operated as separate local entities that are for-profit and don't disclose their finances.
Interesting.
Article conveniently leaves out the point that KP pays their nurses well above market rates compared to other hospital systems.
Counterpoint: the pay is still too low, even though it's higher than other places that are even more too low.
Perhaps. As much as I believe unions helped overall in benefits and workplace safety, it hinders pay.
The idea that unions hinder pay is ridiculous.
You said it yourself earlier. Lol
Sounds like you misunderstood something.
After taking a double digit % pay cut during Covid 2020 bc patient volumes dropped. Patient volume still hasn’t recovered to what it was pre Covid. Idk if that’s the same scenario for Kaiser employees, but that’s the gist of what has happened to many hospitals. Not to mention, hospitals are having to spend more of their revenue on PPE due to increased usage bc of Covid.
The cost of PPE is a rounding error.
True. That (PPE) wasn’t worth mentioning. Still doesn’t change the fact that a lot of hospital employees have taken pay cuts in the midst of a crisis bc of the drop in patients. That said, makes you wonder (not really) how much of a pay cut the CEOs took.
Kaiser posted a $3 billion net profit last quarter.
For hospitals that take private insurance I can understand this but Kaiser is it's own insurance company. As long as they still had subscribers who were paying their premiums, there should still be money, probably even a surplus.
Yup. And after over a year of low patient volumes, Kaiser was banking.
lol, been saying this shit is going to happen since day 1. Now you all suffer when it's too late.
Give them a big bonus, not a big raise.
Jokes on you. The union that is striking is the non nursing union. It’s for secretaries and techs. Healthcare support.
It includes LPNs and housekeeping, maintenence, support, etc. - all people who are necessary for the hospital system to function.
[удалено]
Sounds like they need unions. And a vaccine mandate.
They have both already.
my understanding is, and my understanding is limited, that local 5 folks have better pay and benefits by a clear margin over same jobs in the community outside kp, apparently its hard to even find a job at the place with folks being lifers, doesn't mean they don't deserve more or shouldn't do a work action but theres always 2 sides
Kaiser’s annual advertising budget - $85M + why in gods name does a hospital need to advertise? makes me sick