Healing Together: The Labor-Management Partnership at Kaiser Permanente

by Thomas A. Kochan, Robert B. McKersie, Paul S. Adler

Kaiser Permanente is the largest managed care organization in the country. It also happens to have the largest and most complex labor-management partnership ever created in the United States. This book tells the story of that partnership-how it started, how it grew, who made it happen, and the lessons to be learned from its successes and complications. With twenty-seven unions and an organization as complex as 8.6-million-member Kaiser Permanente, establishing the partnership was not a simple task and maintaining it has proven to be extraordinarily challenging. Thomas A. Kochan, Adrienne E. Eaton, Robert B. McKersie, and Paul S. Adler are among a team of researchers who have been tracking the evolution of the partnership between Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions ever since 2001. They review the history of health care labor relations and present a profile of Kaiser Permanente as it has developed over the years. They then delve into the partnership, discussing its achievements and struggles, including the negotiation of the most innovative collective bargaining agreements in the history of American labor relations. They conclude with an assessment of the Kaiser partnership's effect on the larger health care system and its implications for labor-management relations in other industries.

Genres: Health Care, Labor

272 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2009

Reviews

[Tyler K · Rating 4 out of 5]

A history of the development and operation of the Kaiser Permanente Labor-Management Project (est. 1995), from a team of academics given wide access to both sides. Most helpfully, provides live accounts of contract negotiations and how the LMP used interest-based bargaining to solve problems, big and small. Makes use of a trove of data from KP worker/manager surveys + business metrics to analyze working conditions, employee satisfaction, patient care, and the Partnership’s impact on all of them. Helpful context in understanding where SEIU’s desire for ‘partnering’ with employers emerged out of. Pairing with UE’s Them and Us Unionism for balanced reading.