UNAC’s Secrets and Lies

1. UNAC negotiates in secret

UNAC-led Alliance never told its Kaiser members that their new contract ties their performance bonuses to helping Kaiser cut costs. In 2023 and 2024, UNAC must help Kaiser cut the payroll cost of all their represented staff by 1.5 percent for members to get their full bonus.

If we join UNAC, that means we’d likely have to cut staffing by 1.5 percent in order to get our full bonuses. Instead of our union fighting to increase staffing, we’d be incentivized to be even more understaffed.

2. UNAC silences dissent

While UNAC touted its new contract that included the secret concession on performance bonuses, it excluded its pharmacist members from negotiations and prevented pharmacist leaders from communicating with their colleagues about the contract.

3. UNAC contracts discriminate against non-nurses

• UNAC pharmacists have lower stand-by pay and per diem differentials than nurses. The pharmacists’ wage scale increases by only 3 percent over their first 15 years. For nurses, pay increases by 39 percent over their 15 years.
• UNAC Optometrists get an extra 95 cents per hour for working evenings and $1.30 for working nights. UNAC nurses, like NUHW members, get an extra $2.75 per hour for evenings and $4.50 per hour for nights.
• In 2014, UNAC negotiated its first contract for Kaiser Recreational Therapists. It agreed to a wage scale that cut pay for new workers by 40 percent and forced them to join the inferior UNAC performance bonus plan.

4. UNAC doesn’t stand up for its members

“If you want to know what it’s like to be represented by UNAC, the first thing you should understand is that you won’t have a say in anything, and, if there’s a problem, UNAC will not stand up for you.” – Chris Warren, FV Physical Therapist

“I have spent a lot of time comforting nurses who have been in a corrective action or just been upset with the way their area was being managed. I can provide all the emotional support. I can keep directing them back to their representation. But some of them left their area because they didn’t have representation or they felt their representative was colluding with their manager.” – Lisa Carroll, Kaiser Medical Social Worker