Late pandemic blues

I've been making too many visits to Kaiser Permanente health facilities lately. What's there? A workforce, exhausted by the pandemic, making demands.

Yesterday, when I went to pick up some meds, I wondered whether I'd be met by picketing pharmacists. But no, apparently workers and management settled at the last minute.

Meanwhile, a long-running strike by Kaiser stationary engineers drags on. They walked out on September 18 and see no bargaining progress yet. These are the workers who keep the physical plant running -- a major job in a modern hospital. Somebody has to fix pipes and recalcitrant elevators, at whatever hour they are needed.

A friend who is a retired stationery engineer tells me that, though the job is very well compensated, erratic scheduling which puts workers on-call for irregular long stretches. Understaffing can wear down even the proudest mechanics. The pandemic most likely brought all these inconveniences and inequities to the fore.

The Chron reports other Kaiser unions are demonstrating their solidarity:

In support of the engineers, several other unions have authorized one-day sympathy strikes on Thursday, and the California Nurses Association and National Union of Healthcare Workers on Friday. 

Our stuttering recovery from pandemic disruption seems to have awakened many workers to their hopes for better ...